What are the ice shootings each year
Executive summary
Reporting from national and local outlets documents a sharp rise in shootings involving federal immigration agents during the 2025 enforcement surge, but there is no single, authoritative annual tally: at minimum, independent compilations and local reporters counted dozens of incidents and multiple deaths in 2025, while other ICE-related deaths (in custody) numbered in the dozens — underscoring inconsistent definitions and incomplete public data [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. What “ICE shootings” means — two different phenomena
“ICE shootings” is used loosely by outlets to mean (a) incidents where ICE or other federal immigration agents fired their weapons at civilians during enforcement operations, and (b) deaths that occurred while people were in ICE custody; the two are separate categories and should not be conflated — news databases catalog both types but usually treat them differently [1] [4].
2. What the public counts show for 2025 — at least dozens of officer-involved shootings
Local and national reporting found a significant number of officer-involved shootings tied to federal immigration activity in 2025: Get-the-facts analyses and local stations reported at least 19 incidents in the administration’s intensified enforcement period, noting five deaths and multiple injuries among civilians in those incidents [1]. Newsweek and Time compiled lists of multiple ICE-involved shootings across U.S. cities including Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., documenting numerous episodes throughout the year [2] [5].
3. Minneapolis became a focal point — cluster of shootings and public outcry
Minneapolis saw several high-profile shootings by federal immigration agents late in 2025 and into early 2026 that intensified scrutiny: reporting tied the death of Renee Good and other recent shootings to the federal surge, prompting protests and investigations and local leaders to claim a disproportionate share of shootings involved ICE agents in the city [5] [6] [7].
4. Deaths in ICE custody are a parallel but distinct tally
Separately, the Guardian compiled a timeline showing 32 people died while in ICE custody in 2025 — a different metric from officer gunfire but frequently cited when discussing ICE’s overall lethality and medical-care failures in detention [4]. Advocacy groups and legal monitors maintain lists of detention deaths that media and lawyers rely on for oversight [8].
5. Official and advocacy counts diverge; data are fragmented
Government sources (ICE statistics pages) publish broad arrest and detention metrics but do not maintain a consolidated, public, year-by-year list specifically enumerating officer-involved shootings by ICE distinct from CBP or other DHS components, which leads researchers and journalists to compile their own lists; independent trackers and local reporting therefore produce differing totals and likely undercounts [9] [10].
6. Competing narratives and institutional framing
The Department of Homeland Security highlighted dramatic increases in assaults against officers in 2025 as context for its enforcement posture, presenting a narrative of rising threats to agents [11]; critics and civil-rights reporters emphasize civilian deaths, detention fatalities and alleged misconduct in the same period, arguing the enforcement surge produced more uses of lethal force [11] [4] [12].
7. Bottom line and limits of available evidence
A precise, year-by-year official count of “ICE shootings” is not publicly available in a single dataset; the best available reporting indicates at least dozens of officer-involved shootings in the 2025 enforcement surge (with independent tallies of roughly 16–19 incidents and multiple deaths reported by local and national outlets) and a separate count of 32 deaths in ICE custody in 2025 compiled by The Guardian — but discrepancies among sources and gaps in federal disclosure mean these figures should be treated as minimums, not definitive totals [1] [3] [4] [2].