ICE deported 174 Daca recipients through most of last year, agency head says in letter

From January through September 2025, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported 174 people that were renewing their protections from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program, the head of the agency has said in a letter reviewed by the Guardian.

The letter, written by ICE’s acting director, Todd Lyons, and sent to the Illinois congressional representative Delia Ramirez, also confirmed that a total of 270 Daca recipients were arrested during that same timeframe, or over the first nine months of Donald Trump’s second presidency.

How many Daca recipients and applicants had been targeted for arrest and deportation in 2025 was previously unclear, after the former homeland security secretary Kristi Noem gave conflicting information in two separate letters to members of Congress.

The figures as cited by Lyons amounted to a clear rebuke by the Trump administration against a program established in 2012 – during Barack Obama’s presidency – allowing undocumented people who were brought to the US as children to live and work in the country with certain protections from deportation. Daca has been the subject of ongoing contentious litigation, placing it – and the fate of its recipients, known as “Dreamers” – at risk.

Data from US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) says there are about 533,000 active Dreamers nationwide. Daca recipients are required to undergo vetting when reapplying to the program.

In a statement to the Guardian, Ramirez called the Daca recipients’ deportation evidence of a “white nationalist agenda” laid out by the Trump administration and White House adviser Stephen Miller.

“[The Department of Homeland Security, DHS] has refused to abide by the protections that Daca provides to Dreamers, [and] it is clear that Daca recipients are at great risk,” the congresswoman’s statement said. “The mandate from Trump and Miller is clear: our neighbors will continue to be terrorized, detention will continue to be unsafe and fascists will continue to try to profit from our pain.

“We must abolish ICE and dismantle DHS.”

In a statement, the DHS said that between late September and mid-November of 2025, there were 73 additional Daca recipients arrested by ICE. That brought the number of Daca recipients arrested by ICE over the first 11 months of 2025 to at least 343.

“To be clear: Daca does not confer any form of legal status in this country,” a DHS spokesperson said. “Any illegal alien who is a Daca recipient may be subject to arrest and deportation for a number of reasons, including if they’ve committed a crime”.