Proponents of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation effort have become increasingly concerned that the administration is falling short of its lofty goal of carrying out one million removals each year while appearing to inflate the numbers.
A lawsuit announced against the Trump administration by the Oversight Project, a nonprofit group advocating for a “mass deportation,” has brought those concerns to light. The complaint centers on the Trump administration’s failure to respond to outstanding Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for deportation data.
The group alleges that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may have provided deportation data to the American people that are “contradictory” to the numbers presented to lawmakers.
The claim is significant given the Oversight Project’s support of the Trump administration’s historic deportation push.
Scott Mechkowski, a visiting fellow for deportation studies at the Oversight Project, told The Daily Wire that he hopes “the numbers aren’t inflated,” adding that he has his doubts.
“I’m hoping that the numbers aren’t inflated, but I just don’t see [it] with the current daily jail populations being down. I know that just recently in the last week or two, they’ve said they’ve arrested a couple thousand people. But before that, the numbers were down,” the former ICE official said.
“So, if the numbers are down, either they’re deporting more people … but then, where are all the charter flights? What flights are they leaving on? … If it meets the president’s agenda, why wouldn’t there be more press on that? If I’m getting rid of charter after charter of people,” Mechkowski added.
In one example cited by the nonprofit organization, a department press release from January 20, 2026, stated that “over 3 million illegal aliens are out of the country, as DHS has removed more than 675,000 illegal aliens and estimated 2.2 million illegal aliens have self-deported.”
However, the department informed Congress in its fiscal year 2027 budget justification that “it had removed and returned a total of 442,637 aliens in Fiscal Year 2025 — which includes the final months of the Biden Administration,” the Oversight Project said in a recent press release.
Citing an internal agency document, CNN reported in March that 72,000 foreigners had self-deported through the Trump administration’s exit program.
In May, DHS told Fox News that deportations stood at 3 million, with more than 900,000 removals by federal authorities and another 2.2 million self-deportations.
The numbers “simply do not make sense,” the Oversight Project said, adding, “Our FOIAs and subsequent lawsuits seek to obtain actual data in a form that is easily understandable and gives the American people the ability to see the true deportation numbers.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has also failed to publish an annual report for fiscal year 2025, as they have in previous years.
“ICE has published an annual enforcement report every year, covering FY2020 through FY2024, with predecessor Year in Review reports going back to 2016. Congress directed ICE to keep publishing it, no later than 90 days after the close of each fiscal year, with five years of comparison data in a sortable, downloadable, and printable format,” the group said.
“FY2025 ended on September 30, 2025. The report was due by late December. More than six months later, it has not appeared.”
At the end of the day, “actions gotta match words,” Mechkowski said.
“You got Markwayne Mullin up there on day one saying this is gonna happen, I want to be transparent … And you know what, nothing’s being published. And why isn’t it being published?” Mechkowski said.
DHS didn’t respond to a request for comment.
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