How many ice agents vs civilians and undocumented people have been hurt and or killed?
Executive summary
Public reporting shows far fewer ICE and Border Patrol officers killed in the line of duty than civilians killed in general, while deaths and injuries to civilians and people detained by ICE have surged in recent years; exact totals vary because outlets count different things (agent line‑of‑duty deaths, agent shootings, and in‑custody deaths) and use different time windows [1] [2] [3]. This analysis lays out the principal, cited tallies and explains why a single definitive number does not exist in the available reporting [4].
1. How many ICE and Border Patrol agents have been killed or hurt?
Aggregated government and policy analyses show relatively small numbers of agents dying in the line of duty: Cato’s review reports 92 ICE and Border Patrol agents have died in the line of duty since 2003, with COVID‑19, vehicle accidents and medical events dominating causes rather than homicides [1]. Coverage and agency data cited by Mother Jones note that agency records do not list immigrants as having killed ICE officers in the agency’s two‑decade history, and that disease (COVID‑19) is the leading cause of ICE officer deaths by that account [5]. Reporting on assaults or nonfatal injuries to agents is rarer in the available sources; Mother Jones cites a handful of incidents (attempted attacks on facilities and an attack that injured an officer) but does not compile a single national injury total [5].
2. How many civilians have been shot, injured or killed by ICE and other immigration agents?
Investigations and compilations differ but converge on a pattern of repeated deadly force incidents: The Trace’s review ties ICE and related DHS shootings to at least nine deaths and six injuries in its sample [2], while Wired places the count higher, stating at least 25 people have been killed by ICE agent shootings since 2015 and describing at least ten deaths tied to incidents involving moving vehicles [6]. Local and national news databases counted 16 shooting incidents in one presidential second term that produced four deaths and at least seven injuries, underscoring variation by period and methodology [7]. Independent reporting and watchdog timelines make clear that fatal shootings by immigration agents are neither isolated nor uniformly catalogued [2] [6] [7].
3. How many undocumented people (and other people in ICE custody) have died or been hurt in detention?
Deaths in ICE custody spiked in 2025: The Guardian and Reuters cite ICE figures showing roughly 30–32 people died in ICE custody in 2025, the highest totals in two decades, and Reuters separately reported four migrants died in the first ten days of 2026 [3] [8] [9]. Reporting attributes the 2025 rise to overcrowding, medical neglect and mental‑health crises, though investigators and advocates dispute details in individual cases and call for systemic review [3]. These custody deaths are a distinct category from people shot by agents during operations, and both figures matter for assessing harm to detained or undocumented people [3] [2].
4. Why the counts differ and what the sources reveal about limits in the data
Differences stem from definitional choices—“agent killed in line of duty” versus “killed by an immigrant,” “shot by an ICE agent” versus “died in ICE custody”—and from opaque, redacted use‑of‑force logs that make public accounting incomplete: The Trace said logs are bare‑bones and selectively redacted [2], Wired and The Marshall Project document inconsistent agency narratives and gaps, and ICE’s public statistics are not always granular enough to reconcile investigative tallies [2] [6] [10] [4]. Policy shops like Cato emphasize agent fatality rates relative to civilian homicide risk [1], which is a different policy lens than watchdogs documenting possible unlawful force and detention deaths [1] [2] [3].
5. Bottom line
Measured by available reporting: hundreds of ICE/Border Patrol officer deaths in the line of duty since 2003 number at about 92 for the combined group (per Cato’s compilation) and are driven mainly by disease and accidents rather than immigrant violence [1] [5]; independent investigations link ICE use of force and task‑force shootings to at least single‑digit to mid‑double‑digit civilian deaths and several injuries depending on timeframe and methodology [2] [6] [7]; and separately, ICE reported roughly 30–32 in‑custody deaths in 2025 alone, with further deaths documented in early 2026 [3] [8]. Because sources count different phenomena and use different years, a single definitive comparative tally cannot be produced from the available reporting without reconciling those methodological gaps [2] [4].