How many people have died in custody under Trump
Executive summary
Reporting shows a clear rise in deaths connected to U.S. immigration enforcement during President Trump’s second term, but the exact tally depends on how “died in custody” is defined and which reporting period is used; major outlets put the 2025 calendar-year total at roughly 30–32 ICE custody deaths, while congressional and advocacy tallies for portions of the term show lower official counts (e.g., 25–27) because of different cutoffs and reporting methods [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. What the headline numbers say: 30–32 in 2025, depending on the source
Several reputable news organizations and immigration groups converged on a similar conclusion for the 2025 calendar year: The Guardian’s investigative tally lists 32 people who died in ICE custody in 2025, calling it the deadliest year for the agency since 2004 [1], while Reuters reported “at least 30 deaths in ICE custody” last year and noted additional deaths in early 2026 that continued the trend [2]; other organizations and legal advocates produced lower fiscal-year or partial-year tallies [5] [4], underscoring slight differences in methodology.
2. Why counts diverge: definitions, reporting windows and who’s included
Discrepancies arise because outlets and watchdogs use different definitions—some count only deaths that occurred inside detention facilities, others include deaths after transfer to hospitals while still under ICE custody, and still others use fiscal-year versus calendar-year accounting or rely on ICE’s public reports vs. media-compiled incident lists, producing figures such as 23 reported in a fiscal year tally by advocacy groups, 25 publicly reported by ICE in a congressional letter, and the 32-case compilation in The Guardian [5] [3] [1].
3. Context and trends: more detentions, more scrutiny
Reporting links the rising death totals to a dramatic expansion of detentions under the administration—advocates and analysts warn overcrowding, strained medical care and policy shifts lowering detention standards can raise mortality—and note 2025’s total matches or exceeds prior high points in the early 2000s, making it the deadliest year in two decades according to The Guardian and other outlets [1] [5] [4].
4. Separate but related categories: shootings, field deaths and executions
Not all deaths discussed in the broader debate are the same category: NBC and others have cataloged shootings by DHS/ICE agents during enforcement operations that have resulted in fatalities separate from in-custody deaths (reporting 12 shootings since September in one compilation), and federal executions carried out at the end of Trump’s earlier presidency are a distinct legal category of state executions rather than detention medical deaths—both are part of the wider conversation about government-caused deaths but are counted differently from ICE in-custody mortality [6] [7].
5. Limits of the public record and what cannot be asserted
A definitive single number that covers every possible category—fatalities during arrests, while in ICE facilities, after transfer to hospital but under custody, or during enforcement shootings—is not available in the public sources provided; congressional requests and watchdog groups show ICE’s public reporting has gaps and different groups’ tallies vary by method, so the most supportable statement from available reporting is that roughly 30–32 people died in ICE custody in 2025, with partial-year and agency-reported counts at times cited as 23–25 depending on the period and definitions used [1] [2] [3] [4].