Immigration and Customs Enforcement carried out more than 2,000 deportation flights from President Donald Trump’s inauguration to the end of 2025, amounting to a 44% increase from 2024, according to a newly released analysis.
The report by Human Rights First, published Monday, provides detail into how Trump ramped up deportation efforts in 2025, expanding the volume and footprint of removal flights.
Human Rights First documented ICE-contracted flights using planes’ registration numbers, recurring flight routes, ICE detention center and destination locations.
It found that ICE carried out 224 deportation flights in December for a total of 2,138 flights between Jan. 20 and the end of the year, the most in the previous five years. There has also been a 123% increase in the number of flights transferring immigrants in ICE custody between detention centers and to deportation staging facilities. From Jan. 20 to Dec. 31, there were 8,365 domestic transfer flights.
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Not only did the number of ICE flights outpace that of the past five years, the agency also deported people to more countries than the Biden administration did in 2024. ICE removal flights landed in 25 countries that had not received deportations since 2020, the earliest data available.
While deportation flights to Central America and Mexico still accounted for the largest share of destinations at 70%, the volume of removals increased by 327% to Asia and 239% to Sub-Saharan Africa.
The nonprofit tracked flights carrying third-country nationals to Costa Rica, El Salvador, Eswatini, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Rwanda, South Sudan, Uzbekistan and Poland. The Trump administration is increasingly removing immigrants barred from being deported to their home countries due to safety concerns to other nations.
ICE’s deportation flights are contracted through airline broker CSI Aviation. The agency’s reliance on other companies could change since the Department of Homeland Security signed a $140 million contract to purchase six planes for deportations, The Washington Post reported in December.
By the end of January, Avelo Airlines plans to stop operating ICE flights, The Nevada Independent reported. The airline carried out 18% of flights for the agency, most of them domestic transfers between detention centers, according to the report.
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