Abstract
The paper argues that public debate often collapses distinct immigration pathways into one deportation score. It separates removals, returns, and Title 42 expulsions, distinguishes interior from border enforcement, and uses official immigration-statistics series to make comparisons more consistent.
What the paper contributes
- Definitions are treated as part of the evidence rather than as background terminology.
- Administrative choices and enforcement venues can change headline totals without representing the same underlying event.
- The proposed reporting template favors comparable year-by-year series over partisan scorekeeping.
Publication boundary
This page is a curated public reading copy assembled from the matching Dropbox preprint controller and the author-linked SSRN record. It does not mirror the private archive or reproduce alternate drafts.
The SSRN record reports 126 downloads and 6,397 abstract views in the latest public result retrieved for this audit. Metrics change over time; SSRN does not provide a star-rating field for this paper. The matching Dropbox version requires removal of an older appendix before any longer-form release.
References
- SSRN Harsh Wardhan, Siddhartha, Who Deported More? Measuring Removals, Returns, and Enforcement Priorities Across Presidential Administrations 2000–2025 (2025), SSRN abstract 5495878.Open source ↗
Source notes
- Featured first because it has the strongest retrieved SSRN download and abstract-view signal among the matched public preprints.
- The site presents the controlled public synopsis, not the raw DOCX/PDF or an appended prior draft.
Limitations and unresolved boundaries
- The SSRN record is a working paper, not peer-reviewed publication status.
- Comparisons depend on definitions, population coverage, reporting periods, and the treatment of Title 42 expulsions.
- SSRN usage statistics are time-varying and should not be treated as scholarly quality ratings.
Suggested citation
Siddhartha Harsh Wardhan. “Who Deported More? Measuring Removals, Returns, and Enforcement Priorities Across Presidential Administrations 2000–2025.” Independent Observer, 13 October 2025.