MEXICO CITY — The Trump administration has launched an unprecedented immigration enforcement operation across the United States to deport people who are there illegally, but data compiled by a Mexican investigative outlet shows that deportations of Mexicans were lower last year than in each of the previous four years.
Under the Biden administration, deportations of Mexicans per year reached almost 300,000. Since President Trump returned to the White House in January of last year, the United States has deported just over 144,000 Mexicans to their country of origin by the end of 2025, according to Mexican government data.
Analysis by Quinto Elemento Lab, an independent nonprofit investigative journalism organization based in Mexico City, illustrates trends in migration from Mexico to its northern neighbor and highlights the conditions in Mexico that drive those trends. According to the data, around 90% of those deported were men.
“The deportation policy that Trump has implemented does not seem to be as severe as in previous years in numerical terms,” said Efraín Tzuc, data analyst at Quinto Elemento Lab.
But raw numbers don't tell the whole story of Mexican migration. The overall numbers are down, in part, because there are fewer Mexican immigrants entering the United States since Trump beefed up border security. Fewer successful entries can mean fewer eliminations.
For generations, Mexican immigrants have crossed the border in search of economic opportunity. That motivation remains true, but Mexican government data analyzed by Quinto Elemento Lab reveals that many of the migrants deported in 2025 came from states plagued by cartel violence.
The largest number of deported Mexicans, 12,786, came from Chiapas, which borders Guatemala and is Mexico's southernmost state. Traveling from there to the border with the United States is a trip of about 2,000 miles.
In decades past, a state in central Mexico would be the likely source of most migrants, but cartels have fought bloody battles in Chiapas over the past decade as criminal groups fought to control lucrative drug trafficking and migrant smuggling routes from Guatemala to Mexico.
The hyperviolent Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel, which began in the western state of Jalisco, now has a presence in distant Chiapas. According to security analysts, the criminal group competed for control of migrant smuggling routes there and waged bloody battles over territory. Extortion skyrocketed as the group implemented its model of extorting communities they control to pay salaries for foot soldiers.
After Chiapas, the other two main states of origin for deported Mexicans were Guanajuato, with 11,552, and Guerrero, just behind with 11,044.
As in Chiapas, the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel now dominates life in parts of Guerrero, driving entire populations from their villages to seize the territory for its drug trafficking and opium cultivation operations. The cartels have intensified their use of violence, using drone bombs not only to attack their enemies and military convoys, but also to drive villagers from their homes.
In one case that occurred in 2024, the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel dropped more than 100 bombs on a community in the mountains of Guerrero in a 24-hour period, according to a former cartel agent who witnessed the attacks.
The southern state of Oaxaca had the fifth highest number of Mexican deportees: 9,133.
Oaxaca is one of the poorest states in the country, with 16% of the population living in extreme poverty, according to government data. The state has long been an exporter of immigrants to the United States seeking work to support their families at home.
The trend found in the Fifth Element Lab analysis (that more Mexicans were deported annually under the Biden administration than during the second Trump administration) is also reflected in the statistics of deportees of all nationalities.
A New York Times analysis of US federal data shows that the Trump administration deported about 540,000 people last year. That's 50,000 fewer than in 2023 and 110,000 fewer than in 2024, the final year of the Biden administration.
This article was published in collaboration with Puente News Collaborative, a nonprofit bilingual newsroom covering stories from Mexico and the U.S.-Mexico border.
