How many people died at the hand of ICE agents during the Obama presidency

1. What the phrasing "died at the hand of ICE agents" actually demands

The user’s wording asks for deaths caused directly by ICE agents — deaths from use of force, shootings, beatings, or other immediate agency action — not the broader set of deaths that occur while people are detained (which can include medical neglect, suicide, natural causes, or post-arrest medical emergencies). None of the provided sources supply a straightforward, source-verified tally of deaths explicitly attributable to ICE agent use of force during the Obama years, so the available records address a different but related metric: deaths in ICE custody ^{[1] [2]}.

2. What the NGOs and investigative reports record: 56 deaths in ICE custody under Obama

A 2025 report released by the American Civil Liberties Union, Detention Watch Network and the National Immigrant Justice Center—summarized in press materials from NIJC—states that 56 individuals died while in ICE custody during the Obama administration ^[1]. The report, Fatal Neglect, examines patterns of substandard medical care and agency inspections that the authors say contributed to detainee deaths ^{[1] [2]}. That 56-person figure is presented as deaths occurring "in custody," a category reinforced by the longer NGO report’s review of ICE inspection failures and historical FOIA documents ^[2].

3. Why "in custody" is not the same as "killed by agents" — and the limits of existing records

The distinction matters because deaths in custody can result from multiple causes: untreated illness, suicide, complications of chronic conditions, or use of force. The sources cited above focus on systemic medical care failures and oversight gaps rather than cataloguing incidents where ICE agents’ immediate actions are alleged to have killed someone ^{[1] [2]}. Official and public records mechanisms (for example the death reports compiled and published under DHS appropriations rules) track "in custody" deaths and produce narratives and detainee death reports, but they do not always parse out which deaths were the result of direct agency violence versus other causes ^{[3] [2]}.

4. Government data, media compilations and differing tallies

Public compilations such as the Wikipedia chronology rely primarily on federal records and media reports to list deaths in ICE detention over time and note that ICE is required to disclose in-custody death reports under law ^[3]. Media investigations and NGO reports highlight patterns and numbers; for example, the NGO report cites 56 deaths during Obama ^[1], while the broader public databases collect multiple years and individual case narratives ^{[3] [2]}. What is missing from the sources provided is a single, corroborated table or DOJ/ICE statement enumerating how many of those deaths were the direct result of lethal force by ICE agents during the Obama era.

5. Conclusion: the best-supported answer and the remaining uncertainty

Based on the available reporting, there is no documented, source-backed count in these materials that states how many people were killed directly by ICE agents during the Obama presidency; the clearest statistic present in the sources is that 56 individuals died while in ICE custody during the Obama administration, a figure reported by the ACLU/DWN/NIJC consortium ^{[1] [2]}. That number should not be read as a count of homicides by ICE agents because the sources emphasize custody deaths and systemic medical failures rather than proven instances of agent-inflicted lethal force ^{[1] [2]}. Government death-reporting requirements and media/NGO lists exist and can be examined for case-by-case determination, but such a granular attribution — isolating deaths caused directly by ICE agents during Obama — is not provided in the documents supplied ^{[3] [2]}.