How many shootings involving ICE and CBP agents were reported each year from 2017–2025?

1. What the public record actually says about 2017–2024

There is no authoritative, consolidated public dataset in the reviewed reporting that lists the number of shootings involving ICE and CBP agents for each year from 2017–2024; journalism and watchdog compilations repeatedly note undercounting and patchy public reporting, and the agencies themselves did not provide comprehensive historical totals to reporters, complicating efforts to produce a reliable year‑by‑year table for 2017–2024 from the sources at hand ^{[3] [4]}.

2. The 2025 spike: multiple trackers converge on a similar story

Independent reporting and tracker projects assembled by outlets such as The Trace and news teams found that reported agent‑involved shootings burgeoned in 2025: analyses published around January 2026 identified roughly 16 shooting incidents involving federal immigration agents in 2025, with several outlets citing that figure and connecting it to a broader rise in enforcement actions that year ^{[1] [3]}.

3. CBP versus ICE: overlapping rosters, inconsistent attributions

Different trackers assign responsibility differently because operations often involve both ICE and CBP personnel and news reports sometimes cannot identify the shooter; The Trace’s reporting emphasized that CBP agents were involved in about 18 of the documented incidents in the recent surge, while other outlets counted “ICE” shootings separately or combined federal immigration agencies, producing slightly different totals — a methodological gap that makes agency‑specific annual accounting from the available sources unreliable ^{[2] [5]}.

4. Discrepancies across outlets and why they matter

Local TV, national papers and nonprofit trackers reported overlapping but not identical incident lists — for example, a Get the Facts Data Team analysis cited by WCVB and others counted 16 incidents resulting in several deaths and injuries, while WBAL described five ICE‑involved shootings in a particular Trump administration period; these divergences arise from differing inclusion rules (whether incidents where agents were present but not identified as shooters are counted, whether off‑duty shootings are included) and underscore that small differences in method produce materially different year totals ^{[3] [6]}.

5. What can be reliably stated for 2017–2025

Based on the reviewable journalism and tracker work cited here, the only defensible, sourced statement is that 2025 showed a marked rise in reported shootings involving federal immigration agents — with multiple outlets placing the count in the mid‑teens for 2025 and The Trace citing roughly 18 CBP‑involved incidents in its compilation — and that publicly available sources do not provide a complete, consistent annual count for each year 2017–2024 ^{[1] [2] [3]}.

6. Alternative interpretations and hidden agendas in reporting

Some outlets frame the rise as evidence of excessive use of force during mass enforcement sweeps and emphasize civilian harm; others highlight agent safety and rare victimization of agents, producing competing narratives — and partisan interest in immigration policy amplifies both kinds of coverage, while trackers’ methodological choices (what to include and how to attribute shooters) shape headline numbers and can create headline‑friendly spikes or downplay trends depending on inclusion rules ^{[4] [7]}.

7. Bottom line for readers and researchers

A precise, year‑by‑year tabulation for 2017–2025 cannot be assembled from the cited sources because of inconsistent public reporting and divergent tracker methods; what is clear in the available reporting is a significant increase in reported agent‑involved shootings in 2025 (mid‑teens by several counts, with CBP frequently named among involved agencies), and any deeper chronological analysis demands either access to a comprehensive government‑released dataset or a transparent, consistent re‑compilation of every incident report ^{[1] [2] [3]}.