DHS Withheld Public Deportation Stats From Watchdog Group, Lawsuit Alleges

The Oversight Project is suing the Department of Homeland Security for allegedly withholding public deportation records.

The Oversight Project submitted eight “highly-specific” Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), the organization announced in May. The requests asked the organizations to provide data to support the claim that 3 million illegal aliens have been deported, as well as other specific data points.

Since then, DHS has not sent along the deportation records. The lawsuit states: “Plaintiffs requested the records at issue in this proceeding from the Department on May 7, 2026. Two months later, and to date, Plaintiffs have received only an acknowledgment of their requests and a conditional fee waiver. DHS’s failure to respond timely is a violation of FOIA.”

The Mass Deportation Coalition, of which the Oversight Project is a member, released a playbook in March to help President Donald Trump achieve his campaign promise of delivering “the largest mass deportation operation in American history.” Part of this playbook, the Oversight Project said in a press release, is “regular and complete data transparency.”

The Oversight Project unveiled its “Two Commas Compliance Tracker” in May, a graphic designed to show the public the administration’s progress in achieving the president’s campaign promise. “We want to see two commas in the deportation numbers this year,”
President of the Oversight Project Mike Howell said in the press release.

The Oversight Project and DHS have shared priorities, according to the press release. Border Czar Tom Homan said in May that he expects deportation numbers to increase in 2026, saying “millions” need to be deported.

“[W]e’re not going to give up on President Trump’s promise to the American people on mass deportations,” Homan told Fox News. When asked about large-scale deportation efforts, Homan said he would “give it one hell of a shot.”

A DHS spokesman told The Federalist that the agency is continuing to deport illegal aliens, saying they have deported 3 million illegals thus far. This figure is one of the claims that the Oversight Project requested documentation of in its FOIA requests to DHS. The department claimed it has received over a million FOIA requests, and is still processing thousands.

“In FY 2025, DHS set a new record for FOIA activity — receiving more than one million FOIA requests and processing nearly one million requests, including many from prior fiscal years,” a DHS spokesman told The Federalist. “DHS maintained its FOIA backlog at 16% of total requests received, despite a 19% increase in incoming requests. The year ended with a backlog of just over 168,000 requests.”

The DHS spokesman told The Federalist that as of June 24, over 948,000 illegal aliens have been deported and over 981,000 have been arrested. In addition, they claim that the administration’s crackdown on immigration caused around 2.2 million self-deportations.

Howell, one of the named plaintiffs in the case, told The Federalist that DHS could have quickly provided the deportation statistics: “This matter is now in litigation. It would have taken DHS as much time to send me the narrow deportation statistics we asked for as it took to send this unrelated note to you. I was born at night but I wasn’t born last night. I and others just want the deportation numbers.”

This is not the first instance of the Oversight Project filing a lawsuit against DHS. In 2023, the organization sued the Biden administration’s DHS after it failed to comply with FOIA requests related to the Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant Program. The department funded a grant program that placed Fox News, The Heritage Foundation, and the Republican Party on a “pyramid of far-right radicalization,” linking them to neo-Nazis.

Now, the Oversight Project is again demanding transparency from the department. In addition to not responding to FOIA requests, DHS has not published its annual enforcement report for FY 2025 which was due by “late December” according to the Oversight Project.

“Americans are being asked to rely on press releases, shifting toplines, and selectively framed numbers instead of the annual data ICE is supposed to produce,” the Oversight Project’s press release stated. “A press release is a claim. The annual report is a record.”