Trump Administration Sets Deportation Record, With More Coming
The Department of Homeland Security logged nearly 300 deportation flights in May 2026, marking the highest single-month total since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025 and, by all accounts, the highest ever recorded. That figure is more than double the 126 flights logged during Trump’s first full month back in power, a data point drawn from Human Rights First’s ICE Flight Monitor, which tracks federal immigration enforcement flights.
Since January 2025, the Trump administration has conducted roughly 3,000 deportation flights total, removing nearly 900,000 illegal immigrants by air alone, according to a DHS spokesperson. May’s 296 flights represent nearly 10% of that entire 16-month operation, compressed into a single month.
According to an analysis by America First Insight, the Trump administration averaged 700 daily deportations before the implementation of the One Big Beautiful Bill, after which the rate doubled to roughly 1,400. The pace under the new DHS Secretary. Markwayne Mullin has reached around 2,400 deportations per day.
Congressional Republicans passed the One Big Beautiful Bill last summer, delivering an extra $191 billion to DHS for immigration and border enforcement through September 2029. DHS official Jaclyn Rubino told the Border Security Expo that the agency is “frontloading” 75% of that allocation by September, with funding directed toward personnel, detention expansion, new technology, and data sharing. Of the targeted 10,000 new ICE agents, about 7,000 are already on board, with 3,000 more in training.
Mullin was confirmed as DHS Secretary roughly two months before May’s record-setting performance, and the surge appears directly tied to his tenure. America First Insight credits Mullin’s leadership for the increase.
“Pretty interesting things we are seeing coming out of Mullin’s deportation style. It’s more quiet, but it seems to be doing pretty good on removals,” America First Insight noted on X.
“You’re going to see a lot more arrest activity throughout the whole country,” White House border czar Tom Homan promised on Monday. “We got almost 700,000 illegal aliens with criminal records walking the streets of this country, mainly because the sanctuary cities released them. But we got a lot of work to do.”
Since Trump returned to power, 3 million illegal aliens have either been involuntarily removed or self-deported under enforcement pressure. DHS puts the voluntary departure number at 2.2 million on its own, with another 900,000 removed on government aircraft. The administration credits this sustained pressure with delivering what the White House describes as the first net-negative immigration outcome in 50 years — every U.S. metro area recording net-negative migration for the first time in half a century.
Homan has made clear the administration has no intention of easing off. “We’re going to continue to surge resources, especially to sanctuary cities, because we know we have a problem there,” he said in May. “I expect the numbers to increase while the border numbers continue to decrease.” The enforcement infrastructure is in place, the money is committed, and the agents are being hired. By Homan’s own framing, May 2026’s record may be a floor, not a ceiling.