Did ice shoot anyone during Obama admin

Checked on February 1, 2026
Disclaimer: Factually can make mistakes. Please verify important information or breaking news. Learn more.

Executive summary

The question being asked is whether U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents shot anyone while Barack Obama was president; available reporting does not produce a clear, public catalog of ICE shootings specifically tied to the Obama administration, and the sources provided do not identify a confirmed, attributable ICE shooting during the Obama years (they document deaths in custody and later shootings under other administrations) [1] [2] [3]. Investigations and partial records suggest the agency has a history of using deadly force and resisting disclosure, but the reporting at hand stops short of a definitive list of Obama-era on-duty shootings by ICE agents [2].

1. What the question actually asks and why it matters

The user is asking for a factual, attributable account: did ICE agents — while acting in their official capacity during the Obama presidency — fire their weapons and kill or wound someone; this is different from deaths in detention (medical neglect, suicide, etc.), and it matters because shootings by armed federal officers implicate use-of-force policy, criminal investigation jurisdiction, and presidential oversight of enforcement agencies [1] [4].

2. What the reporting clearly shows about deaths in ICE custody

Advocacy groups and watchdog reporting documented numerous deaths while people were detained by ICE during the Obama years — for example, one coalition report cites 56 deaths in ICE custody during the Obama administration, primarily tied to medical care failures and detention conditions rather than public shootings by ICE agents [1].

3. What reporting says about ICE shootings and public disclosure

Investigative journalists who sought ICE’s internal shooting logs describe long, adversarial fights to obtain records and say the agency provided counts but was reluctant to release detailed records; a journalist who sued ICE said she obtained records spanning the end of Obama’s term through later administrations, but the public reporting based on that work emphasizes systemic secrecy and does not present a neat, public list of Obama-era shootings in the sources provided [2].

4. Where recent high-profile shootings fit and how they differ

The contemporaneous media coverage attached to these search results centers on deadly shootings of civilians by federal immigration agents in 2026 (for example shootings in Minneapolis that drew presidential and political comment), which are documented as happening under later administrations and are cited in several news accounts — these incidents are often presented as examples of ICE/CBP use of force in the present moment, not as Obama-era events [3] [5] [6] [7] [8].

5. Limits of the evidence and alternative viewpoints

Because ICE long resisted releasing shooting logs and because mainstream coverage tends to focus either on detention deaths or on high-profile recent shootings, the absence of a named, well-documented Obama-era ICE shooting in these sources should not be taken as ironclad proof none occurred; rather, it reflects a gap in publicly available, confidently attributed records in the materials supplied. Advocates argue ICE’s secrecy and poor accountability obscure the full picture; ICE’s partial disclosures and litigation over records (reported by The Trace) support that claim but do not produce a definitive public list attributing specific shootings to the Obama years [2] [1].

6. Bottom line — what can be stated with confidence

Based on the reporting supplied, there is documented evidence of many deaths in ICE custody during the Obama administration (mostly medical/detention-related) and robust reporting of ICE shootings in later years, but the sources provided do not identify a confirmed, publicly documented instance where an ICE agent shot and killed or wounded a person while serving during the Obama presidency; claims either way require consulting ICE’s full shooting logs (which journalists say were hard-won) or official DHS disclosures not reproduced in the supplied material [1] [2].

Want to dive deeper?
What public records exist of ICE use-of-force incidents from 2009–2016, and how can they be requested?
How many deaths in ICE custody during the Obama administration were officially recorded as caused by use of force versus medical causes?
What did The Trace’s lawsuit against ICE reveal about the agency’s shooting records and what years do those records cover?