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By Billal Rahman and Dan Gooding
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Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced that approximately 1.6 million migrants without legal status have left the United States during the first 200 days of the Trump administration, a figure immigration experts say could be based on flawed preliminary survey data.
"This is massive. This means safer streets, taxpayer savings, pressure off schools and hospital services and better job opportunities for Americans," Noem said in a press release on August 14.
But experts told Newsweek that the figures cited by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) should be treated with caution.
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Newsweek contacted DHS for comment, requesting a full breakdown of how many left the country through self-deportation. DHS declined to answer the question and instead referred Newsweek to the press release on Noem's announcement.
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Why It Matters
President Donald Trump vowed he would conduct what Republicans describe as the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history. The administration has clamped down on immigrants with hardline policies designed to deter migration.
What To Know
While DHS announced the 1.6 million figure as fact, citing the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data, the Trump administration has yet to update its own official immigration statistics pages online.
Deportations and removal data have not been updated beyond November 2024's numbers. Monthly Customs and Border Protection (CBP) stats also still do not give figures on CBP Home self-deportations, despite the Biden administration regularly sharing details on the app's predecessor.
Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. Immigration Program at the Migration Policy Institute, said the 1.6 million estimate is based on preliminary data from the right-leaning Center for Immigration Studies, which relies on information from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey (CPS).
"The survey has a small sample size—just 60,000 households each month. As a result, the survey's estimates bounce around quite a bit from month to month. The Census Bureau cautions against using the survey to generate estimates of the foreign-born population size for this reason."
Steven Camarota, director of research at CIS, originally shared the figure August 12, stating in the report that the findings were "statistically significant."
"However, given the recent stepped-up enforcement efforts, it is possible that immigrants have become more reluctant to respond to the CPS," Camarota and colleague Karen Zeigler wrote. "If this is the case, then our estimate of illegal immigrants based on the survey may be overstating the decline in their actual numbers."
Gelatt agreedthat lower participation rates by immigrants without legal status, possibly due to fears of government data-sharing with immigration enforcement agencies, could lead to artificially low estimates of the immigrant population.
"It's also very possible that fewer immigrants are answering the survey. Noncitizens may no longer feel comfortable participating in a government survey, given that the federal government is now sharing various data—on public benefits use and from the IRS, for example—with immigration enforcement agencies," she said.
"Lower response rates among immigrants would result in a falsely low estimate of the immigrant population in the survey," she added.
As part of her early initiatives, Noem launched an international, multimillion-dollar advertising campaign warning immigrants with no legal status to leave the country voluntarily. Officials say the campaign, combined with enforcement actions, has contributed to the reduction in unauthorized residents.
DHS rebranded the CBP One App, which previously facilitated entry for more than one million immigrants, replacing it with the CBP Home App. Under Operation Homecoming, the new app allows undocumented immigrants to arrange self-deportation, with the government offering $1,000 and a free flight to encourage voluntary departure.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration reported that over 352,000 undocumented immigrants were arrested, and more than 324,000 were removed from the United States, according to a DHS press release.
What People Are Saying
**Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. Immigration Program at the Migration Policy Institute, told Newsweek: "**A drop of 1.6 million in the unauthorized immigrant population in just 6 months would be far outside trends the U.S. has seen before, even during economic recessions and even during periods of high immigration enforcement."
David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute think tank, told Newsweek: "There is no doubt that the immigrant population has declined since January. But DHS did not make this assessment of the level. It is relaying a faulty analysis of the Current Population Survey. As the Census Bureau "routinely cautions against," the Current Population Survey should not be used to estimate the number of immigrants, let alone illegal immigrants.
"The CPS is properly used to estimate rates for employment and unemployment, but the total population estimate is predetermined based on the Census and projections about future immigration and population growth. The CPS monthly survey sample size is not large enough to estimate the illegal immigrant population with much precision. Even if it were, the Trump administration's abuse of government data in its mass deportation campaign has intimidated immigrants into responding less frequently to surveys. The government has not deported nor recorded self-deportations even close to 1.6 million."
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem in a press release: "In less than 200 days, 1.6 million illegal immigrants have left the United States population."
What Happens Next
The administration is expected to continue conducting widespread arrests and removals as part of its immigration crackdown.
Update 8/15/25, 11:15 a.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from David Bier.
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