52 people have been shot by ice in the last year.

1. What the reporting actually counts — and what it doesn’t

Investigations and nonprofit trackers compiled by outlets such as The Trace and reporting in the Guardian document an increase in shootings involving immigration agents this year, but they distinguish between different agencies and warn their tallies likely undercount incidents; one widely cited compilation counted 14 shootings involving ICE specifically and additional shootings involving CBP and other agencies, not a single consolidated total of 52 ICE shootings ^{[1] [2]}.

2. The most visible incidents that drove the narrative

High-profile cases — including the January Minneapolis shooting of Renee Good and several episodes in the Chicago area and Portland — have focused attention on federal operations and raised public alarm about use of force, with multiple outlets verifying video and eyewitness accounts that sometimes contradict federal statements about those encounters ^{[3] [4] [5]}.

3. Numbers from trackers: split across agencies and outcomes

The Trace’s year-end tracker documented shootings involving both ICE and CBP, noting 14 firearm incidents tied to ICE and more incidents involving CBP; their reporting underscores that agency-level separation matters, because counting all federal immigration-related shootings without agency breakdown can inflate or misattribute responsibility ^{[2] [1]}.

4. Deaths in custody vs. shootings in the field — different metrics

Reporting also flagged 32 deaths in ICE custody during 2025, a separate statistic from shootings during enforcement actions; combining custody deaths and field shootings into a single “shot by ICE” number would conflate distinct phenomena and is not supported by the sources provided ^[1].

5. Why definitive counting is hard and why claims spread

Journalists and researchers warn that shootings involving immigration agents are not consistently reported or categorized, raw incident counts are compiled from news reports and public records, and federal disclosures vary — all of which create gaps that allow rounded or amplified claims like “52 people” to circulate without verification ^{[2] [1]}.

6. Official responses, political framing and competing narratives

Federal officials have defended agents’ actions in specific cases and characterized some incidents as self-defense or even “domestic terrorism” by assailants, while local leaders and some verification of video footage dispute those accounts; both DHS and local critics have clear political incentives — the administration to justify enforcement policy and local officials and advocates to spotlight harms — and the coverage reflects that tug-of-war ^{[6] [3] [7]}.

7. What can be said with confidence

It is accurate to say there has been an observable increase in high-profile shootings and use-of-force incidents involving federal immigration enforcement this year and that independent trackers identify dozens of such incidents across ICE and CBP, but the specific claim that 52 people were shot by ICE alone in the last year is not corroborated by the sources provided, which instead cite lower ICE-only tallies and emphasize undercount risks ^{[1] [2]}.

8. Where verification needs to go next

To substantiate or refute a precise number like 52 for ICE alone requires systematic, transparent data from DHS/ICE or an exhaustive cross-agency audit of incidents and outcomes; absent that, responsible reporting should separate agency counts (ICE vs. CBP), distinguish shootings from in-custody deaths, and clearly flag uncertainty instead of repeating single-number claims drawn from mixed datasets ^{[2] [1]}.