How many complaints have been filed against ICE for excessive force in 2024 vs 2025

1. What proponents say about a surge — and what they actually released

Federal officials and DHS/ICE statements circulated claims of very large percentage increases in assaults on ICE officers in 2025, with one DHS press release explicitly citing an 830 percent increase in assaults for part of 2025 versus the same period in 2024; that release, however, does not present complaint or excessive‑force complaint counts and provides only percentage language without raw complaint totals ^[4]. Media coverage summarized viral videos and on‑the‑ground incidents described as extreme force in sites such as Chicago, but that reporting focuses on examples and patterns rather than a systematic complaint dataset that would allow a direct year‑over‑year complaint comparison ^[3]. The supplied materials therefore document rhetorical framing and incident reporting, not formal complaint statistics ^[5].

2. What independent reporting found on incidents, not complaint totals

Investigations and news outlets documented specific alleged abuses, deaths in custody, and troubling enforcement practices—reporting that frames ICE with a persistent accountability gap—but these pieces stop short of enumerating internal complaint filings for 2024 and 2025 ^{[2] [6]}. Several analyses in the supplied set highlight case files, patterns of alleged constitutional violations, and historical use‑of‑force critiques, which are useful for assessing systemic risk but do not substitute for administrative complaint tallies maintained by DHS, ICE, or the Department of Justice ^{[7] [6]}. The absence of published complaint totals in these articles means they cannot answer the user's direct numerical comparison request.

3. Government statistics versus public assertions — a transparency gap

ICE and DHS statistical releases linked to enforcement actions and arrest metrics are present in the material, yet the enforcement statistics releases do not include complaint counts about excessive force ^[8]. The DHS assertion about percentage increases in assaults pertains to incidents against officers and has been used in public statements; these claims underscore changes in operational risk but are not equivalent to admissions of higher internal complaint filings against ICE for excessive force, and the supplied DHS release itself omits complaint numbers ^{[4] [8]}. This creates a transparency gap where agencies publicize certain operational metrics while withholding or not compiling comparative complaint totals in public form ^[5].

4. Conflicting claims and the limits of available evidence

Some supplied analyses note agency claims of dramatic percentage increases in assaults without corroborating raw data and flag that federal court filings and other datasets do not reflect comparably large shifts ^[5]. Independent reporting highlights specific force incidents and fatalities but, crucially, none of the documents in the provided set reconcile agency rhetoric, media case studies, and a formal accounting of complaints. The mix of event reporting, agency assertions, and watchdog critiques demonstrates competing narratives—one emphasizing operational danger to officers, another emphasizing detainee harm—but the available evidence does not resolve which narrative translates into higher complaint filings in 2025 compared with 2024 ^{[2] [5]}.

5. Bottom line and what is needed to answer the question definitively

Based on the supplied materials, there is no verifiable numeric answer to “how many complaints were filed against ICE for excessive force in 2024 vs 2025.” To answer definitively requires either: (a) ICE or DHS release of complaint‑level data for calendar years 2024 and 2025 showing raw counts and disposition, or (b) a compiled dataset from DHS oversight bodies, DOJ civil rights units, or FOIA‑obtained records that enumerate complaints filed and their outcomes. The supplied sources document incidents, percentages about assaults on officers, and investigative reporting, but none provide the year‑by‑year complaint tallies needed to make the requested comparison ^{[4] [1] [3]}.