U.S. authorities have stopped publishing specific data on their operations, raising doubts over whether more than 2.5 million undocumented immigrants have left the country thanks to President Donald Trump's immigration policy, as the White House claims. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) highlighted that 2025 has been a 'year of unprecedented achievements' with the departure of 605,000 people who were deported and 1.9 million undocumented immigrants who left voluntarily since January 20. Most questions are focused on the 1.9 million undocumented immigrants who allegedly left the country on their own. The White House has not provided data to support this figure to the press or organizations. Based on a survey MPI Policy Institute analyst Ariel Ruiz Soto told EFE that the problem lies in the Trump administration's reliance on the Current Population Survey (CPS), a monthly poll conducted by the Census Bureau to determine how many undocumented immigrants have left the country. The CPS survey has undergone several changes since late 2024, including a reduction in the sample size of respondents. This is compounded by the fact that President Donald Trump's mass deportation campaign has likely caused undocumented immigrants to stop answering the survey. 'This figure of 1.9 million is much harder to verify and goes far beyond what we have seen in other areas of the same survey,' Ruiz Soto explained. The analyst insists that even if a decrease in the number of immigrants responding to the survey has been reported, this does not constitute real proof that they are leaving voluntarily, a point with which immigrants themselves agree. 'Those are government exaggerations to scare people,' R. Hernández, a Mexican living in Los Angeles for over 20 years, told EFE. The immigrant stated that if he is deported in the future, he would try to return to his wife and his three U.S.-citizen children. 'Instead of threatening to deport us, he should see how to give us papers,' he added. The self-deportation campaign Far from proving the data, the Trump administration prefers to celebrate the success of its immigration policy. DHS Under Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said recently that undocumented immigrants 'are getting our message that they need to leave now.' DHS has allocated $200 million for a campaign to promote the 'self-deportation' of foreigners, promising them a $1,000 payment and the possibility of returning legally if they register their departure on the CBP Home app. About 35,000 people have reported their departure through the promoted app, according to two officials overseeing the program, a figure far from the 1.9 million undocumented immigrants who allegedly left on their own. Fewer deportations than Biden DHS has also stopped publishing the breakdown of deportation figures, making it more difficult for organizations like MPI to track the data. According to the latest figures, under Trump's second term, 605,000 foreigners have been deported, a number that falls within a range the White House could prove, according to Ruiz Soto. However, among these 'deported' individuals are foreigners turned back at airports without having entered the U.S. The majority of those convicted had sentences for minor offenses, immigration violations, or traffic violations. Photo EFE The article Was Trump able to really remove more than 2.5 million foreigners from the U.S. in 2025? was first published in La Verdad Panamá. Also under the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are immigrants who opt for voluntary departure. This figure is lower than the 685,000 deported in the last year of former President Joe Biden's administration (2021-2025). 'I think the Trump administration will fall short of reaching that number,' the analyst predicted. But the White House will likely continue to promote that it has removed hundreds of thousands of 'the worst of the worst criminals' from the country, with data that has also been questioned. The most recent report from the Cato Institute found that 73% of people detained by ICE had no criminal record or pending criminal charges. Los Angeles (U.S.).
