Fact-checking Kristi Noem that 1.6 million immigrants ‘have gone home voluntarily’

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem touted the results of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, saying more than 1 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally chose to leave the country.

"According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, we have 1.6 million illegal aliens that have gone home voluntarily," Noem told reporters during an Aug. 19 visit to the U.S. southern border. "They have left the United States, returned to their countries at the encouragement of President (Donald) Trump and his policies so that they have an opportunity to come back to America the right way."

Noem repeated the statistic at an Aug. 26 Cabinet meeting. 

The Department of Homeland Security told PolitiFact that tens of thousands of immigrants had used a government app to voluntarily leave the country, and that 1.6 million immigrants who were in the country illegally had left the U.S. since Jan. 20, when Trump took office. But it didn’t specify how Noem reached that number.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics did not present this data as Noem described. 

An Aug. 14 press release announcing that 1.6 million immigrants had left the U.S. showed one possible source for Noem's data; the press release included a chart from the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that favors low immigration levels. 

On Aug. 12, the organization published a report analyzing survey data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Current Population Survey.

"We preliminarily estimate that the number of illegal immigrants has fallen by 1.6 million in just the last six months," the report said.

Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies and one of the report’s authors, told PolitiFact the "overwhelming majority" of the 1.6 million would have left on their own. 

But the number also includes immigrants who, for example, were deported, died, left voluntarily and those whose status changed such as by getting asylum. DHS previously told PolitiFact that it had deported 239,000 people as of June 30.

The Center for Immigration Studies number is an estimate. And the group’s report pointed to several data limitations, including a lack of official government data and possible reluctance by immigrants to complete a government survey because of Trump’s immigration crackdown.

"There is always some uncertainty in research of this kind, which we point out in our report," Camarota told PolitiFact, adding that he would refer to the number as an estimate "based on the best data available." 

The U.S. Census Bureau has cautioned against using the Current Population Survey to estimate the number of foreign-born people in the country. It said the Current Population Survey’s sample size of 60,000 households makes it less reliable than data from the bureau’s  American Community Survey, which has a sample size of 3.5 million households. 

Using the Current Population Survey, the Pew Research Center estimated that the U.S. foreign born population had dropped by 1.4 million people from January to June. However, it did not specify how many of those people were in the U.S. illegally and it also noted that part of the drop could be attributed to decreased survey responses.    

Other researchers who study immigrant populations also said the Current Population Survey points to a drop in the number of people in the U.S. illegally. However, they said it’s too soon to know by how much.

Surveys used to estimate the number of immigrants illegally in the U.S. have limitations

The Department of Homeland Security and several research groups typically publish annual estimates of how many immigrants are in the U.S. illegally. Every group has its own methodology, but collectively, the groups rely on Census Bureau data. 

Researchers generally rely on the bureau’s more robust American Community Survey. That’s because the Current Population Survey’s sample size has a large margin of error, said Robert Warren, a demographer and senior visiting fellow at the Center for Migration Studies of New York, one of the groups that estimates the immigrant population.

In July 2025 the Current Population Survey reported an adult foreign born population of 48.5 million people with a margin of error of plus or minus 830,000 people, Jed Kolko, an economist who served as under secretary of commerce for economic affairs during the Biden Administration, told PolitiFact. By comparison, the 2023 American Community Survey reported an adult foreign born population of 45.5 million with a margin of error of plus or minus 162,000.

The Current Population Survey is published monthly compared with the American Community Survey, which is published once a year and its data is from the year prior. The American Community Survey’s time lag makes it useless in measuring the most recent, month-by-month changes in the nation’s foreign born population, Warren said.

Group questions whether respondents were reluctant survey participants

The Center for Immigration Studies’ report acknowledged that immigrants in the U.S. illegally might be more reluctant to complete the government’s Current Population Survey or identify themselves as foreign-born. The Trump administration has given immigration officials access to other federal data to help identify and potentially deport people.

"If (fewer people are responding), then our estimate of illegal immigrants based on the survey may be overstating the decline in their actual numbers," the Center for Immigration Studies report said.

Camarota, the report’s co-author, has since questioned the report’s suggestion that immigrants may have been reluctant to participate, calling it nothing more than a possibility: "There is as yet no evidence of this," Camarota wrote in an Aug. 20 blog post.

The group’s report also acknowledged that administrative data needed to estimate the unauthorized immigrant population is unavailable, further increasing the "uncertainty of our estimate."

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James Uthmeier

stated on August 24, 2025 in an X post

The U.S. Census included a citizenship question “for over 150 years” before the Obama administration.

To estimate the number of immigrants in the U.S. illegally, Camarota told PolitiFact, he first needs to estimate the number of people in the country legally. DHS and State Department data on people who have legally entered the country hasn’t been updated since May 2025, he said. 

What we know about the current unauthorized population in the U.S. 

Multiple immigration experts said they believe the Current Population Survey data points to signs of a decrease, but it's not conclusive enough to say how much with certainty.

For example, the Pew Research Center’s estimate that the foreign born population had dropped by 1.4 million people didn’t include how many of those people were in the U.S. illegally. The center’s estimates of the unauthorized population rely on the 2023 American Community Survey.

The Current Population Survey "may offer an early sign that immigrants, unauthorized and legal alike, are leaving the country in some number, though not to the extent suggested by DHS or others," Michelle Mittelstadt, communications director for the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank that also estimates the number of unauthorized people in the U.S., said. 

"We think more likely at this point that lower survey response rates among immigrants and the small sample size of the survey are driving much of the estimated change," Mittelstadt said, adding that a drop of 1.6 million people "would be far outside trends the U.S. has seen before, even during economic recessions and prior periods of high immigration enforcement."

Warren said the Current Population Survey "provides strong evidence of a decline."

Even though the 1.6 million figure in six months would be "unprecedented," he said there have been drops in the foreign population. From 2016 to 2019, an average of 1.3 million people left the foreign-born population each year, according to Warren’s analyses of the American Community Survey. 

Mark Hugo Lopez, director of race and ethnicity at Pew Research Center, said the drop in the unauthorized immigrant population is in part because of a decrease in the number of people illegally entering the U.S. and the administration’s stepped up enforcement. That could include people who voluntarily left the country.

"More data is needed though to assess this. As it becomes available, we’ll know more," he said.

Our ruling

Noem said, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics statistics show, "We have 1.6 million illegal aliens that have gone home voluntarily."

The number Noem presented as a statement of fact appears to be based on an estimate from an immigration think tank’s analysis of data from a Bureau of Labor Statistics and U.S. Census survey. It has a small sample size and large margin of error. 

The figure represents not only people who might have voluntarily left the U.S., but also people who were deported, died or whose status changed such as by receiving asylum.

Other researchers said the preliminary government data shows there has likely been a decrease in the unauthorized immigrant population but it’s too soon to know how large it is. One research group estimated that the foreign born population had dropped by 1.4 million people between January and June. However, it didn’t estimate how many of those people were in the U.S. illegally. 

That group and other immigrant population researchers added that immigrant participation in the government survey might have declined, which could inflate the drop.

The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. We rate it Half True. ​