The agency’s acting director stated that approximately 1.6 million illegal aliens are subject to final deportation orders.
Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Todd Lyons reported that 1.6 million illegal immigrants in the United States have final deportation orders, with around half possessing criminal records.
Lyons disclosed these numbers at a Thursday hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. This occurred as Democrats and left-wing activists heavily criticized the Trump administration’s enforcement actions against illegal immigration.
The ICE chief indicated that roughly 800,000 of those under final orders have criminal convictions.
A final deportation order signifies that U.S. authorities have the legal right to remove a foreign national who has broken immigration laws. Appeals or requests for a stay are still possible at this stage.
Lyons explained that these specific orders were not issued by ICE or the Department of Homeland Security, but instead originated “through an immigration judge with the Department of Justice separate from Immigration Customs Enforcement.”
The acting director noted there are “16,840 final orders at large in the state of Minnesota,” a region where tensions escalated following the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, by federal agents during recent operations. These deaths triggered public outrage and protests across the country.
At the hearing, Republican Senator James Lankford supported the ICE agents, contending that their work “have stopped that chaos” and that the numerous arrests are being conducted according to procedure.
On Thursday, Tom Homan, designated as Trump’s border czar, declared an end to ICE operations in Minnesota. “A significant drawdown has already been underway this week and will continue to the next week,” he stated.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz responded positively to the news in an X post, maintaining that “immigration is the core of who we are.” The governor said the state faces a “long road to recovery” in the wake of recent incidents.
Earlier in the week, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson informed Fox News that Trump is “keeping his promise to carry out the largest mass deportation operation in history,” targeting “the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens.”