HOW MANY ICE AGENTS HAVE BEEN SHOT IN 2025
Executive summary
Reporting compiled by independent outlets and watchdogs shows no clear, widely confirmed count of ICE agents who were actually struck by gunfire in 2025, but several news investigations and trackers identify a small number of incidents in which immigration agents were shot at or involved in exchanges of gunfire — The Trace’s tracker finds three such incidents in 2025 [1] while mainstream coverage emphasizes multiple shootings by agents of others rather than agents being shot [2] [3].
1. What the trackers say: a handful of “shot or shot at” incidents, not a confirmed tally of hit agents
The Trace’s detailed tracker identified “three incidents in which immigration agents were shot or shot at during the crackdown” in 2025, a formulation that explicitly mixes occasions when agents were fired upon with those where rounds were exchanged or shots were aimed at agents [1], and the outlet cautions that media and public records do not always capture every event.
2. Major news outlets focus on ICE agents as shooters, not as victims
National and international coverage through late 2025 and early January 2026 largely documents shootings carried out by ICE agents during enforcement operations — for example multiple fatal and non‑fatal shootings of civilians — and compiles lists of “shootings involving ICE agents,” with The Guardian reporting 14 such incidents involving ICE agents firing their weapons as of its accounting [2], which is a separate metric from how many agents were shot.
3. Official data and agency records do not report a wave of agents fatally shot in 2025
ICE’s historical records and reporting stress that deaths of ICE personnel in the line of duty are rare and do not show a new pattern of officers being killed by people in custody or by immigrants — coverage citing ICE data notes that agents killed by immigrants are essentially not part of the agency’s recent casualty profile [4], and the public-facing “fallen officers” listings are primarily historical [5].
4. Government assertions of rising assaults don’t equal a verified count of agents shot
Department of Homeland Security and ICE statements have emphasized a steep rise in “assaults” against immigration officers — DHS public messaging claimed a large percentage increase in reported assaults in 2025 compared with 2024 [6] — but investigations by outlets such as OPB found those broad claims do not translate into independently verifiable nationwide tallies of officers being shot, and the definition and documentation of “assaults” vary between internal and external tallies [7].
5. How to interpret “shot” versus “shot at” in current reporting
News organizations and trackers often conflate incidents in which agents were targeted, where shots missed, where agents returned fire, and where detainees or bystanders were struck; The Trace’s explicit language — “shot or shot at” — reflects this ambiguity and is the clearest source-based answer available in the provided reporting for 2025 [1], while other outlets catalogue different phenomena (agents firing their weapons, deaths in custody) that do not directly quantify agents struck by bullets [2] [8].
6. Bottom line: available reporting points to very few incidents and no confirmed wave of agents struck or killed
Based on the sources provided, the best-supported figure is that The Trace identified three incidents in 2025 in which immigration agents were shot or shot at [1]; there is no corroborated, public reporting in these sources documenting a larger number of ICE agents who were actually struck and killed by gunfire in 2025, and official ICE historical data and other reporting emphasize that fatal attacks on agents remain rare [4] [5].