Even ahead of his second term’s inauguration in January 2025, Donald Trump had long vowed to uphold his campaign promise by ordering what he claimed would be the largest deportations in US history. As his administration continues its endless bid to remove illegal immigrants, May 2026 recorded the highest levels of deportation flights since the Republican leader took office, according to a report by the Washington Examiner.
The growing numbers seem even more startling when compared with monthly figures during the final year of the Biden administration. At the time, roughly 100 to 200 foreign deportation flights were tracked per month. However, those numbers have grown to 200-300 monthly flights over the last 18 months.
These findings surfaced merely days after a senior US Department of Justice (DOJ) official told CNN and CBS News that the Trump administration has escalated its effort to revoke naturalised citizenship and plans to file more than 250 denaturalisation cases in federal courts across the US by October. 29 of these cases sought to strip foreign-born Americans’ citizenship were filed in less than two months this year.
Notably, all these drastic developments have made headlines, alongside numerous leadership changes, including the high-profile departure of then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and former US Attorney General Pam Bondi, among many others.
Trump’s deportation drive hits monthly high
According to Human Rights First, a Washington-based advocacy organisation, nearly 300 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation flights left the country in May, marking a two-fold rise from the 126 flights registered during the MAGA leader’s first full month in office.
With those record-high monthly numbers in focus, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official told local US news outlet Washington Examiner last week that the Trump government has deported nearly 900,000 illegal immigrants since January 20, 2025. Of these 900,000 people, more than 400,000 immigrants residing in the country unlawfully were arrested between mid-April and May 17, 2026.
These removals were made possible using approximately 3,000 government-chartered flights under Trump’s leadership. A DHS spokesperson told the Washington outlet that 2.2 million people self-deported or voluntarily left the US, in addition to the hundreds of thousands who were deported on government flights.
According to Human Rights First’s ICE Flight Monitor, Central America emerged as the top destination for deportation flights (40% to 60%) every month since Trump returned to office. The next most-visited destinations were to the interior of Mexico and South America. Other popular destinations included Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe and the Middle East. Infrequent flights also flew to Oceania.
However, Human Rights Watch also noted that more of these government-chartered flights (more than 1,000 in May) shuffled detainees inside the US rather than banishing them from the country. Doing so, they moved arrested immigrants from a remote area to a detention centre in a different region with more capacity.
More about Trump’s deportation agenda
Earlier this month, US reports indicated that Congress was on the verge of providing a nearly $70 billion cash infusion to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for Trump’s mass deportation agenda over his remaining White House term. Democratic leaders and pro-immigrant advocates have since slammed the staggering package, calling it a “rotten bill” and an “ATM for ICE,” as it was cleared in a Republican-led Senate before heading to the House.
“We’re going to continue to arrest people, we’re going to continue to detain people, and we’re going to keep deporting people,” Trump’s border czar previously told US media.
A recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research (AP-NORC) of more than 2,500 American adults found that about 6 in 10 people said the country used to be a great place for immigrants, but that was not the case anymore. About one-third of US adults said that over the last year they, or someone they know, have started carrying proof of their US citizenship or immigration status, been deported or detained, changed travel plans, or even avoided work, school or leaving the house, because of their immigration status.
Similarly, a survey (released March 2026) led by Harvard Kennedy School researcher Matthew Baum, the Marvin Kalb Professor of Global Communications, along with researchers from Northeastern University, Rutgers University, and the University of Rochester, revealed a massive 67-point gap between Republicans and Democrats on Trump’s immigration policy.
The poll, taking into account more than 30,000 Americans across all 50 states, found 37% approved of the MAGA leader’s immigration policy, with just 11% of Democrats approving it, compared to 78% of Republicans. Meanwhile, approval of ICE’s enforcement of immigration laws stood at a meagre 33% among Americans, with 69% of Republicans approving compared to merely 9% of Democrats.
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