Chip Roy wants one specific number from DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
He sent a letter demanding it — along with something the federal government hasn't produced in nearly 20 years.
What DHS has been sitting on explains everything about whether Trump's mandate is actually being fulfilled.
Chip Roy Demands ICE Deportation Breakdown by State and by Interior Arrests
The letter — exclusively obtained by Breitbart News — is signed by Reps. Eric Burlison (R-MO), Eli Crane (R-AZ), Andrew Clyde (R-GA), and Mark Harris (R-NC) alongside Roy.
They want the total number of illegal aliens arrested near the southern border and subsequently deported. They want interior enforcement numbers — how many people ICE has pulled out of American communities since Inauguration Day. They want state-by-state breakdowns. They want to know how arrests at worksites and sanctuary jurisdictions compare to those made at courthouses and private residences.
And they want something nobody in government has officially provided in nearly 20 years: an updated estimate of how many illegal aliens are still living in American communities right now.
"Detailed reporting on arrests, removals, and other immigration enforcement activities will help policymakers evaluate progress, identify opportunities for improvement, and support ongoing efforts to fulfill President Trump's mandate to carry out the largest deportation operation in our nation's history," Roy told Breitbart News.
This isn't obstruction. This is Congress doing its job.
DHS Claimed 900000 Deportations but Congress Cant Get the Interior Numbers
Acting ICE Director David Venturella has put out a figure of more than 900,000 deportations since Trump took office. Secretary Mullin's DHS has gone further — claiming over 3 million illegal immigrants have left the country, including an estimated 2.2 million self-deportations.
Those are impressive numbers. They're also maddeningly incomplete.
The critical question nobody in Washington can currently answer: how many of those deportations came from inside American cities and neighborhoods versus the southern border?
That's the hard work — tracking down and removing illegal aliens who made it through, who have been living here for years. Those are the numbers that tell you whether enforcement is operating at scale.
Republicans Push DHS for Immigration Enforcement Data Biden Never Tracked
Roy's letter isn't a political ambush. It's a legitimate request from members of Congress who want to support enforcement — and need the data to do it.
"As Congress and the American people witness the Trump Administration's historic efforts to restore border security and enforce our immigration laws after years of failed policies under the Biden Administration, a timely and comprehensive accounting of the Administration's enforcement actions is essential," Roy told Breitbart News.
He's right. And there's a historical reason this kind of accounting matters.
The Obama administration deported over 3 million people across eight years, but the numbers were deliberately muddied — border returns mixed in with formal interior removals to pad the totals. Democrats used that ambiguity to attack Obama from the left while deflecting comparisons to Trump from the right. Years of debate over figures nobody could cleanly verify.
Trump can avoid that trap. A transparent, state-by-state breakdown of interior arrests, border deportations, and worksite enforcement is the receipts that prove the mandate is being honored — and that shuts down every Democrat who claims the administration isn't delivering.
How Many Illegal Immigrants Are in America Right Now Nobody in Washington Knows
Congress authorized $170 billion in immigration enforcement funding through the One Big Beautiful Bill. DHS has hired 12,000 new ICE agents. Trump has delivered the most aggressive deportation operation this country has ever seen.
And nobody in the federal government can tell you how many illegal aliens are still here.
Not an estimate. Not a range. Nothing — because the last time DHS officially counted was during the Bush administration, nearly two decades ago.
Think about that. The federal government spent $170 billion and doesn't have a current baseline for what it's working against. Every number DHS puts out floats in a vacuum because there's no official starting point to measure against. Biden's open border ran for four years and nobody updated the count. Democrats were perfectly happy with that.
Roy is asking DHS to fix all of it: the interior breakdown, the state-by-state totals, and the population estimate that Washington has been too afraid — or too indifferent — to update for two decades.
The American people voted for the largest deportation operation in history. They deserve to know if they're getting it.
Sources:
- John Binder, "Exclusive: Rep. Chip Roy Leads Republicans to Get Specifics on Deportations from DHS," Breitbart News, June 10, 2026.
- Brittany Miller, "DHS Touts Millions of Illegal Immigrant Departures as Border Crossings Drop 94% Under Trump," Fox News, May 2026.
- "ICE Deported 442k People in Fiscal Year 2025," Axios, April 15, 2026.
- Lauren Bis, DHS Acting Assistant Secretary, official statement on ICE enforcement, Fox News Digital, March 24, 2026.
- "What 30+ Years of Deportations Show Across 5 Presidents," Latino News Network, August 2025.
