How many people have been shot by ICE
Executive summary
Available reporting indicates at least 16 separate shooting incidents involving federal immigration agents during the current enforcement surge, and those incidents have resulted in multiple people being wounded or killed — at least four people killed and seven wounded since July in the counts compiled by news organizations — but precise victim totals attributed specifically to ICE officers are uncertain because reporting pools ICE, Border Patrol and other DHS agents and relies on incomplete public records [1] [2] [3].
1. What the most-cited counts say — a baseline but not a settled tally
Several news organizations compiling open-source data and media reports have converged on a rough figure: The Guardian reported that as of 9 January it had identified 29 incidents linked to the enforcement campaign, including 16 shootings by immigration agents, and noted that since July agents had killed four people and injured seven more [1]. That figure is corroborated by regional reporting and trackers: The Trace and other outlets maintain ongoing lists of gun-related incidents connected to the crackdown, but they highlight different subsets (for example, The Trace identified three incidents in which immigration agents were shot or shot at during the campaign) and emphasize that their counts depend on media and database reporting rather than a single official tally [2].
2. Why the headline numbers are fuzzy — who's counted, and who’s doing the counting
Part of the confusion stems from definitional choices and reporting limits: many outlets and trackers combine incidents involving multiple federal agencies (ICE, U.S. Border Patrol, Customs and other DHS officers) under the umbrella of “immigration agents,” and not all shootings are publicly reported or categorized the same way, so datasets are likely undercounts [3] [1]. Journalists and nonprofits like The Trace and the Gun Violence Archive compile incidents from media reports, police statements and publicly available footage, but those methods capture some events and miss others; public health–style centralization of use-of-force records for federal immigration officers does not exist in a single, fully transparent public dataset cited in the reporting [2] [1].
3. What the incidents reported so far look like — fatalities, wounds and contested narratives
Recent high-profile cases include the Minneapolis fatal shooting that drew national outrage and scrutiny, in which an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good and officials have offered competing accounts about whether the agent was endangered by a vehicle, with Minnesota leaders disputing the federal narrative [4] [5]. In Portland, Border Patrol agents shot and wounded two people during an operation, an event repeatedly cited in live coverage and local reporting [6] [7]. Regional and national outlets also recount other shootings in Texas, California and Illinois, including an off-duty ICE officer who shot a man in Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve and a fatal traffic-stop shooting in Texas, showing the incidents are geographically dispersed and involve both on- and off-duty personnel [8] [9].
4. How authorities and watchdogs interpret the numbers — competing frames and admitted limits
Department of Homeland Security and agency spokespeople defend agents’ use of force as self-defense amid what they describe as rising assaults on officers, while civil-rights lawyers, local officials and some video evidence allege excessive force and contested accounts in multiple cases [2] [5]. Reporters and researchers explicitly warn that counts are likely incomplete and that tracking efforts depend on inconsistent public reporting, meaning the published totals — “16 shootings,” “29 incidents,” “four killed and seven injured since July” — should be read as best-available, contemporary tallies rather than definitive final counts [1] [3] [2].
5. Bottom line and limits of the record
The most consistent public reporting as of early January 2026 points to at least 16 shooting incidents involving immigration enforcement agents and at least several deaths and injuries tied to those incidents [1] [2], but the precise number of people shot by agents identified strictly as ICE officers cannot be stated with certainty from the available sources because coverage mixes agency types, underreporting is likely, and independent, comprehensive federal accounting is not present in the cited reporting [3] [2]. The counts are thus best understood as minimums that reflect a pattern of multiple fatal and nonfatal shootings during the enforcement surge, even as investigations and record consolidation continue [1] [5].