How many deaths during USA forcible deportation between 2021 and 2024

1. What the numbers show — the documented toll in detention

Public compilations tracking “deaths in ICE detention” list five deaths in 2021, three in 2022, seven in 2023 and eleven in 2024, yielding a total of 26 documented in-custody fatalities across those calendar years ^[1]. Independent NGO reporting has previously chronicled larger multi-year tallies — for example, a 2024 report examined 52 deaths in ICE custody from 2017–2021 — underscoring that death in detention is a recurring, if numerically small, phenomenon relative to overall detention totals ^[3].

2. What “during forcible deportation” likely means — and the evidence gap

The user’s phrase “during USA forcible deportation” can mean deaths that occur while a person is detained by ICE pending removal, deaths during the physical act of removal (on a deportation flight, at a border transfer, etc.), or deaths of people immediately after being expelled; the available sources predominantly document deaths that happened in ICE custody and do not separately enumerate deaths that occurred specifically during deportation motions or flights ^{[1] [2]}. Government monthly enforcement tables and ERO dashboards track arrests, removals and detentions but do not provide a public, detailed line-item tally of deaths that distinguishes “in-custody” from “in-transit” or “during removal” in the sources provided here ^{[2] [4]}.

3. Why official counts can understate the phenomenon

Advocates and reporting note practices and reporting gaps that complicate counting: NGOs and journalists have alleged that ICE sometimes “releases” individuals shortly before death, which affects whether a case is captured in official in-custody tallies, and legislative requirements for reporting have not eliminated disputes about transparency ^{[1] [3]}. ICE has revised death-notification and reporting policies in recent years, but public-facing dashboards and NGO tallies can differ in methodology and timing, meaning any single figure should be read as the best-documented count rather than an incontrovertible total ^{[5] [1]}.

4. Broader context: removals vs. deaths and reporting limitations

The broader enforcement apparatus was busy in FY2021–FY2024 — migration policy trackers note over a million removals/returns beginning in FY2021 through early 2024 — so even a modest absolute number of in-custody deaths can attract scrutiny and policy debate ^[6]. However, the sources at hand do not provide a verified, separate tally of deaths that occurred exclusively during the physical act of forcible deportation as distinct from deaths that happened while detained prior to or after a removal order ^{[6] [2]}. Where advocacy groups, journalists and ICE differ is in which deaths are counted and how promptly they are disclosed, which creates unavoidable uncertainty around the precise scope of deaths “during deportation” beyond the 26 documented in ICE custody from 2021–2024 ^{[1] [3]}.

5. Bottom line and caveats

Based on public compendia of in-custody deaths, 26 people died in ICE detention across 2021–2024 (5 in 2021, 3 in 2022, 7 in 2023, 11 in 2024) ^[1]; this is the clearest, source-supported numerical answer available in the records provided. It is not possible from the cited material to claim a different, separately tabulated number for deaths that occurred specifically “during forcible deportation” events (e.g., on removal flights or immediate expulsion moments) because those distinctions are not broken out in the public tables and reports supplied here ^{[2] [1]}.