How many deaths occurred in ICE detention facilities each year from 2003 to 2025 according to DHS and advocacy groups?
Executive summary
A complete year-by-year tally of deaths in ICE custody from 2003–2025 cannot be compiled from the reporting provided; DHS/ICE has made systematic public death reports only since FY2018 and advocates’ trackers supply more recent counts (not a full historical series) — for 2025 advocacy trackers and multiple outlets report 32 deaths in ICE custody, the highest since 2004 [1] [2] [3] [4] [5].
1. What the question asks and what the sources actually allow
The user requests a per-year count for 2003–2025 “according to DHS and advocacy groups,” a request that requires two separate data streams: official DHS/ICE annual reporting and independent tallies from advocacy researchers; the material provided shows DHS/ICE public reporting is systematic beginning in FY2018 (ICE’s Detainee Death Reporting policy and portal) while advocacy groups and trackers publish incident counts and analysis for specific years, notably 2025, rather than a contiguous 2003–2025 dataset [1] [6] [2].
2. What DHS/ICE officially provides (and its limits)
ICE’s public-facing policy and portal explain that death reports have been issued following each in-custody death since April 2018 and that DHS/ICE employ internal reviews and reporting protocols for detainee deaths, but the portal and policy documentation in the provided reporting do not supply a complete 2003–2017 annual time series; therefore DHS’s own published records — as shown in the supplied sources — can reliably supply FY2018–present reports but do not, in these excerpts, produce a consolidated 2003–2025 year-by-year table [1] [6].
3. What advocacy trackers and watchdogs report for 2025 (the clearest data point)
Multiple watchdogs, journalists and advocacy trackers documented a sharp rise in custodial deaths in 2025, with independent trackers and outlets — including reporting aggregated by Andrew Free and cited by Newsweek, The Guardian, Project On Government Oversight and other outlets — identifying 32 in-custody deaths in 2025, and labeling 2025 the deadliest year since 2004 [2] [5] [3] [4] [7].
4. Historical context researchers cite (2004 benchmark)
Reporting repeatedly notes that 2025’s death toll is the highest since 2004, implying 2004 was a previous peak year; the sources provided reference 2004 as the last year with such high fatalities but do not enumerate each year’s totals across 2003–2017 in these excerpts, leaving a multi-year series unconfirmed in the supplied material [3] [7] [4].
5. Why a full 2003–2025 DHS vs. advocacy year-by-year table cannot be produced from these sources
The supplied documents include detailed analyses of recent years, FOIA-based reviews for 2018–2023 deaths, and independent trackers’ totals for 2025, but none present a verified, continuous annual count for every year from 2003 through 2025; therefore any attempt to list every year’s number would require consulting ICE’s archived death reports (for FY2018–present) and aggregating historical records, academic datasets or advocacy compilations for 2003–2017 that are not included here [6] [1] [8].
6. Practical, transparent answer and next steps for verification
Definitive, source-attributable annual counts from 2003–2025 cannot be delivered from the provided reporting; however, where the reporting is specific: advocates and media documented 32 deaths in ICE custody in 2025 — a surge confirmed by multiple outlets and trackers and characterized as the highest since 2004 [2] [5] [3] [4] — and DHS/ICE’s public death-reporting system reliably covers FY2018 onward on ICE’s Detainee Death Reporting page [1] [6]. To construct the complete 2003–2025 series, consult (a) ICE’s archived detainee death reports (FY2018–present) and (b) FOIA, academic reviews and longstanding advocacy trackers (e.g., Detention Kills compilations) for 2003–2017 and to reconcile differences between official reports and advocacy tallies [1] [6] [2].