Uzbekistan has highest number of deportees from US among Eurasian states in 2024

The deportation of citizens of Eurasian nations from the United States experienced a sharp uptick in 2024 over the previous year, according to the annual report released by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, News.az reports citing Eurasianet.

Uzbekistan was the Eurasian state with the most deportees in 2024 at 572, a more than six-fold increase over 2023’s total of 88. Russia had 464 of its citizens deported, slightly more than double the number of deportees the previous year. In the Caucasus, Georgia registered the highest number of deportations in the just-concluded year at 162, up from 24 in 2023. Overall, every nation in the Caucasus and Central Asia experienced a sharp increase in the number of deportations of its citizens.

ICE organized a higher-than-usual number of charter flights in 2024 to return foreign nationals to their home countries. “These included the first large charter removal flight to the People’s Republic of China since FY2018 as well as large charter flights stopping in Albania, Angola, Egypt, Georgia, Ghana, Guinea, India, Mauritania, Romania, Senegal, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan,” the report states.

Despite the sharp rise in deportation rates, citizens of Eurasian states comprise only a miniscule percentage of the overall number of 271,484 deportees in 2024. The overwhelming majority came from Central American nations, including Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico.

At the outset of 2025, Russia ranked 10th with 1,319 in the category of highest number of detained citizens with final orders of removal. “After a noncitizen receives a final order of removal, [immigration authorities] coordinate with necessary partners to obtain proper travel documents and effectuate the noncitizen’s removal,” according to the report.

The deportation trend is expected to keep rising in coming years with Donald Trump’s return to the US presidency. Trump has vowed to overhaul the US immigration policies and target those already in the United States without proper documentation for deportation.

News.Az