What are the most common causes of death for ICE agents?

1. Why COVID-19 and 9/11-related cancers dominate the toll — agency records and independent reviewers speak plainly

ICE’s publicly maintained fallen-officers list and recent reviews identify COVID-19 and 9/11-linked cancers as the leading causes of officer deaths, together accounting for a substantial majority of fatalities in the agency’s history. The agency’s own summaries and a Mother Jones review explicitly state that COVID-19 is the top single cause and that cancers associated with exposures at the World Trade Center contribute heavily to the death count ^{[1] [2]}. These COVID-19 deaths occurred largely during the 2020–2022 pandemic, when frontline duties and exposure risks for federal law-enforcement personnel were elevated. The 9/11-related cancer deaths reflect long-term mortality patterns tied to first-responder and federal-service exposures after September 11, 2001, and are recorded alongside more conventional causes such as accidents and heart attacks, which appear with much lower frequency in the available datasets ^{[1] [2]}.

2. Line-of-duty homicide is rare — statistical context that reframes “danger” narratives

Analyses of ICE fatality rates over multi-year windows show the annual chance of an ICE agent being killed in the line of duty is very low, with one analysis estimating roughly one in 37,917 per year and an annual death rate of 2.6 per 100,000, lower than typical municipal police and Border Patrol figures cited in comparative studies ^[3]. Those calculations derive from aggregated death counts and workforce size over time and thereby encompass all causes of on-duty death; they indicate that violent homicides of ICE agents are uncommon. Multiple sources emphasize that, across ICE’s more-than-two-decade history, no agent death has been recorded as caused by an immigrant, a point highlighted to correct common public assumptions about direct-on-duty violent confrontations as a principal hazard for the agency ^{[1] [2]}.

3. Accidents, heart attacks, and shootings—real but not primary contributors

Public listings and retrospective reviews list accidents, heart attacks, and shootings among causes of death for ICE agents, yet these categories comprise a minority of recorded fatalities compared with COVID-19 and 9/11-linked illnesses. Agency summaries explicitly name accidents and medical events as part of the death profile but do not displace the leading role of infectious disease and long-latency cancers in aggregate counts ^[1]. Independent assessments that calculate relative risk emphasize that while duty-related trauma and accidents occur, they do not drive the overall mortality pattern for ICE personnel, which is shaped more by pandemic-era infectious disease and long-term occupational exposures tied to 9/11 recovery operations ^{[3] [2]}.

4. Detainee deaths and officer deaths are separate but related accountability issues

Reporting on deaths in ICE custody addresses a different universe of fatalities: detainees, not agents. Investigations into detainee deaths from 2017–2021 conclude that a high proportion of those deaths were preventable or possibly preventable with adequate medical care, spotlighting systemic issues in detention medical oversight ^[4]. The detainee-death literature emphasizes policy and operational failures—delays in care, inadequate monitoring, and insufficient reporting—that differ fundamentally from the causes of agent deaths. While both sets of mortality data reflect on agency operations and occupational hazards, the drivers, accountability frameworks, and remedial strategies diverge: protecting staff from infectious and long-term occupational disease requires different measures than ensuring detainee medical care and reporting transparency ^{[4] [5]}.

5. How reporting choices shape public understanding — different sources, different emphases

Agency-maintained fallen-officer lists emphasize fatalities among employees and often highlight mission-related exposures such as 9/11 rescue work; investigative outlets and public-health reports emphasize pandemic-era impacts and systemic detention failures. A Mother Jones review reiterates the preeminence of COVID-19 and 9/11-linked cancers in ICE’s mortality record, while peer analyses place ICE officer fatality rates below those of other law-enforcement categories ^{[2] [3]}. Reporting differences reflect editorial and methodological choices—time windows analyzed, inclusion criteria for “line-of-duty” deaths, and whether long-term occupational diseases are included—which can change perceptions of what is “most common.” These divergent emphases show the importance of clarifying definitions when comparing causes of death across sources ^{[1] [3]}.

6. Bottom line: the evidence points to disease and long-term exposures, not routine violent encounters

Multiple, recent datasets and reviews converge on a central factual conclusion: disease—especially COVID-19—and long-latency cancers linked to 9/11 exposures are the principal causes of ICE agent deaths, while deaths from violent encounters with detainees or immigrants are not documented as a primary source of fatalities in ICE’s history. Comparative mortality analyses place ICE officer fatality risks below many other policing roles, and separate reviews of detainee deaths reveal a distinct pattern of preventable medical mortality needing policy remedies. Readers should interpret these findings with attention to definitions and time frames used by each source ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}.