USCIS Enforcement Actions: What DHS’s 2.2 Million Tally Counts

DHS says USCIS has revoked or terminated the status of about 2.2 million people since January 2025. The bulk of that number appears to come from a handful of program-wide decisions, not millions of individual case findings.

USCIS enforcement actions have revoked or terminated the status of approximately 2.2 million people since Jan. 20, 2025, the Department of Homeland Security said Oct. 29, calling it nearly seven times the total from the Biden administration’s final two years combined. The number is not a deportation count: it measures people whose status U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services ended, and DHS says it is separate from State Department visa revocations and removals by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It lands five days before the midterm elections and matters most to the people inside it, including Temporary Protected Status holders, former parolees and visa holders denied extensions, many still living and working in the United States while their cases or lawsuits play out.

“President Trump promised the American people that our immigration laws would be enforced, and these numbers reflect the scale of that commitment,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in the department’s statement. DHS listed five kinds of action behind the total: ending what it calls the misuse of TPS, denying applications to extend or change nonimmigrant status where no legal basis exists, issuing Notices to Appear, ending the automatic extension of work permits, and terminating categorical parole programs in favor of case-by-case review.

Two program decisions explain most of the USCIS enforcement actions

DHS has not published a breakdown by category. But two inputs are already on the public record. The Daily Wire, which received the figure from DHS, said the TPS terminations alone cover more than one million people from 13 countries. And when DHS ended the parole processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans in March 2025, its Federal Register notice said about 532,000 people had been granted advance authorization to travel to the United States to seek parole between October 2022 and January 2025.

Action	People affected	Source
TPS terminations, 13 countries	More than 1 million	DHS, as reported by The Daily Wire, Oct. 29, 2026
CHNV parole termination	About 532,000 authorized to travel	DHS Federal Register notice, March 25, 2025
Total status revocations and terminations claimed	About 2.2 million	DHS, Jan. 20, 2025, to Oct. 29, 2026

Together those two groups total at least 1.5 million, or about 70 percent of the 2.2 million, based on the DHS and Federal Register figures. That is a rough share, not a precise one. The groups can overlap, since a Venezuelan or Haitian parolee could also qualify for TPS, and DHS has not said whether its tally removes duplicates. Individual denials and Notices to Appear make up the rest, in proportions DHS has not disclosed.

The distinction matters for how the number is read. A single TPS termination notice can end status for hundreds of thousands of people at once, with no individual finding of fraud or misconduct. Counting each of those people captures the reach of the policy, but it measures program decisions, not case-by-case discoveries. Ending automatic work-permit extensions, which DHS has now finalized by rule, cuts off employment authorization rather than status itself, and DHS did not say how it counted that change.

The Biden comparison and what is still in court

The “nearly seven times” comparison implies a Biden-era baseline of roughly 315,000 actions over two years, a calculation from the DHS figures. DHS has not published that baseline or said whether it was counted the same way. The comparison is also uneven by design: the Biden administration created or extended most of the TPS designations and parole programs now being ended, so it had few comparable terminations to count.

Not every termination in the total has taken effect. The Daily Wire noted that some TPS terminations remain held up in litigation, and it reported that it was not clear whether all 2.2 million people had actually lost status. Those fights include the appeal over Somali TPS, and a Congressional Research Service count shows 13 of 17 designated countries terminated. A person protected by a court order may sit inside the DHS number while still holding valid status and a work permit.

The White House separately said Oct. 20 that more than 300,000 visas had been revoked, while USCIS carries a naturalization backlog above 813,000. The open question is whether USCIS will publish category-level data in its quarterly reports, which would show employers, attorneys and lawmakers how much of the push falls on individual applicants and how much on whole populations.

This article is for general information and is not legal advice.

Sources

• USCIS news release: USCIS takes 2.2 million enforcement actions (Oct. 29, 2026)
• The Daily Wire: Trump admin hits historic milestone in immigration crackdown (Oct. 29, 2026)
• Federal Register: Termination of Parole Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, 90 FR 13611 (March 25, 2025)
• White House: How President Trump ended the border invasion and restored American sovereignty (Oct. 20, 2026)

About the Author

Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Esq.

Administrator

Vasanth Vaidyanathan is an immigration attorney with over 20 years of experience focused exclusively on U.S. immigration and nationality law. He holds a LL.M. from California Western School of Law, San Deigo and advises individuals and businesses on employment and family-based immigration matters, including H-1B, PERM, EB categories, and adjustment of status. He has also been a featured speaker at immigration seminars across the U.S. To reach Vasanth visit: https://www.vnathan.com/

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