How many deaths in ICE detention were ruled preventable or due to medical neglect each year since 2015?

1. The clearest headline: 2017–2021 aggregated finding — 52 deaths, 95% preventable

A joint report by the ACLU, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), and American Oversight examined 52 deaths that ICE reported from Jan. 1, 2017 to Dec. 31, 2021 and concluded, based on independent medical expert review of ICE investigatory files and medical records, that 95% of those deaths could likely have been prevented with adequate medical care — an aggregate that translates to about 49 of the 52 cases ^{[2] [1] [3]}.

2. Why a year-by-year tally since 2015 isn’t available in the reporting provided

None of the cited sources offers a vetted annual breakdown of deaths explicitly “ruled preventable” or formally adjudicated as “due to medical neglect” for each calendar year beginning in 2015; the ACLU/PHR/American Oversight analysis bundles cases into the 2017–2021 period and independent watchdogs and NGOs report cumulative death totals over longer spans without providing consistent, year-specific preventability determinations ^{[2] [4] [5]}.

3. Missing pieces that prevent a year-by-year answer from public reports

Key limitations include ICE’s own reporting practices (for example, ICE excludes some people who are released immediately prior to death from counted custody deaths), aggregation of deaths into multi-year studies rather than annual adjudications, and the absence of a single public dataset where independent medical determinations of “preventable” are recorded by year; the PHR note explicitly warns that some deaths are not included in ICE’s public counts because of releases prior to death, which diminishes transparency for annual accounting ^{[3] [2]}.

4. Other sources and context that hint at broader trends but don’t fill the gap

Freedom for Immigrants and other advocacy groups compile long-range totals (e.g., at least 185 deaths since 2003) and watchdog reporting documents rising deaths and eroding oversight, and journalism shows 2025 was especially deadly (32 deaths reported in 2025 by news outlets), but these sources either don’t apply a standardized medical-expert preventability assessment by year or explicitly limit their periods or methods, so they cannot be used to produce the requested annual preventability counts since 2015 ^{[4] [6] [7] [8]}.

5. Competing narratives and what they imply about interpretation

Advocacy and medical experts assert systemic medical neglect in detention that likely produced a high share of preventable deaths across recent years ^{[1] [2]}, while DHS/ICE officials defend the agency’s longstanding practice of providing care and have pushed back against claims of decline in conditions — an institutional rebuttal that is visible in reporting but does not reconcile the lack of transparent, year-linked medical determinations ^[7]. Readers should note the implicit agendas: advocacy groups emphasize systemic failure to press for reform, while agency statements focus on procedural defenses that can limit external accountability.

6. Conclusion and the most defensible numeric answer from available reporting

Based on publicly available, expert-reviewed reporting, the only rigorous preventability figure tied to a defined time span is the ACLU/PHR/American Oversight finding that roughly 95% of 52 ICE-reported deaths from 2017–2021 were preventable or possibly preventable (approximately 49 of 52) — there is no source in the provided reporting that supplies an authoritative, year-by-year count of deaths “ruled preventable” or “due to medical neglect” for each year since 2015 ^{[2] [1] [3]}.