How do counts of deaths in Border Patrol custody differ from ICE detention death tallies?
Executive summary
Counts of deaths in Border Patrol custody and deaths in ICE detention are kept in separate official reports and frequently differ because the agencies operate in different parts of enforcement, use different detention systems, and apply different reporting practices—Border Patrol is a uniformed, front-line arm of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) that holds people at or near the border, while ICE runs longer-term detention and removal operations inside the country [1] [2]. Advocates and news investigations have documented that some deaths occurring after transfer, during hospital stays, or following “releases” from ICE or CBP custody are handled in ways that can remove them from one tally or another, producing undercounts, disputes, and legal challenges [3] [4].
1. Institutional difference drives separate tallies
The Border Patrol is a uniformed branch within CBP that apprehends people at the border and in border-adjacent areas and often holds them in short-term stations; ICE, principally through Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), manages longer-term detention, case reviews, and removals—because they are separate agencies with distinct missions and facilities, deaths that occur in each system are reported to different offices and appear in different lists and briefings [1] [2].
2. Different timeframes and custody stages cause mismatches
People arrested by Border Patrol may be held briefly and then transferred to ICE detention, expelled under Title 42, released, or hospitalized; a death that happens after a transfer, during medical transport, or after an administrative “release” may be captured by one agency’s records but not the other’s, producing discrepancies between Border Patrol custody figures and ICE detention tallies [2] [3].
3. Official counts and recent snapshots
ICE’s own public-facing lists and media reconstructions show steep annual variation—2025 was widely reported as one of ICE’s deadliest recent years with around 31–32 deaths identified in custody or in facilities that ICE manages or contracts for—while Congressional letters and other records have highlighted separate counts of Border Patrol custody deaths, such as a cited figure of 17 Border Patrol custody deaths reported to Congress during the first 12 months of the Trump administration [5] [3].
4. Reporting rules, exemptions and contested “release” practices
Federal law and DHS rules require ICE to publicly release reports on in-custody deaths within set periods, but advocates and lawsuits contend the agency has avoided counting some deaths by “releasing” individuals to hospitals or otherwise before death, a practice that critics say creates gaps between actual mortality and official tallies; the ACLU has sued over nondisclosure of such cases [3]. This contested administrative practice, coupled with transfers between CBP and ICE, means that some deaths associated with immigration enforcement may not appear on a given agency’s official list.
5. Advocacy, media reconstructions and differing methodologies
Independent compilations—newsroom databases, NGOs, and crowd-sourced timelines—often include deaths that official ICE lists omit, such as people who died after being seized by Border Patrol or who died while being pursued by immigration agents, highlighting methodological differences: ICE’s list focuses narrowly on deaths occurring in ICE detention facilities or under ICE custody, while other trackers include Border Patrol custody deaths, shooting incidents, and deaths during enforcement operations [5] [6] [4].
6. What reporting cannot definitively resolve from available sources
Public reporting indicates the mechanisms and examples that create differences between Border Patrol and ICE tallies—separate agency jurisdictions, transfers, releases prior to death, and divergent counting rules—but the sources provided do not offer a single reconciled dataset that shows exactly how many deaths fall into multiply counted, omitted, or transferred categories nationwide; absent a consolidated DHS accounting across CBP and ICE, precise reconciliation remains beyond what the cited records disclose [3] [2].