How many deaths during USA forcible deportation between 2017 and 2020
Executive summary
There is no single, authoritative public count of how many people died as a direct consequence of forcible deportation between 2017 and 2020; independent investigations and government data instead document dozens of deaths in U.S. custody and multiple cases of deportees killed after return, while also emphasizing that any totals are likely undercounts [1] [2] [3]. Government systems track certain in‑custody and border deaths, but no comprehensive mechanism publicly links removals to post‑deportation mortality, leaving researchers and human‑rights groups to piece together partial tallies [4] [5] [6].
1. What the public records actually show about deaths in U.S. custody (2017–2020)
Independent advocates and researchers compiled detailed case files showing dozens of people who died while detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during the years that overlap the question: a major review by the American Civil Liberties Union, Physicians for Human Rights and others examined 52 ICE‑reported detainee deaths across 2017–2021 and concluded systemic medical and oversight failures contributed to many of those deaths — the report explicitly analyzed deaths that include the 2017–2020 window but did not produce a single "2017–2020" tally in public materials [1]; peer‑reviewed analysis of ICE detention deaths covering FY2018–2020 examined medical versus suicide deaths and found COVID‑19 became a dominant cause after April 2020, but that study frames results in categories rather than offering a definitive deportation‑related death count [7]. ICE itself has formal reporting procedures for detainee deaths and publishes death reviews, which provide case‑level documentation but do not equate to a consolidated figure of deaths “caused by” forcible removal [5] [8].
2. What human‑rights investigations add — deaths after deportation and structural blind spots
Human Rights Watch and similar organizations documented multiple cases in which people deported by the United States were subsequently murdered or otherwise killed in their countries of origin, and they warn that these documented cases likely undercount the true toll because no entity reliably tracks post‑removal harm or mortality [2] [3]. HRW’s reporting includes named cases — for example, deportations in 2017–2018 followed swiftly by killings of returnees — and argues that U.S. procedures that truncate credible‑fear screening or apply narrow legal interpretations have, in specific instances, resulted in removals that placed people in lethal danger [2]. These investigations therefore establish that lethal outcomes after forcible return occurred in the period asked about, but they stop short of providing a comprehensive numeric total because of data gaps [2] [3].
3. Why an authoritative numeric answer is not currently possible
Federal agencies track and investigate different slices of the problem — CBP tracks border fatalities and has an Office of Professional Responsibility that reviews in‑custody deaths, ICE maintains detainee‑death reporting protocols, and DHS publishes enforcement tables — yet no government dataset publicly synthesizes removals with subsequent deaths to produce a causal count of deaths “during forcible deportation” or “as a result of” deportation across 2017–2020 [4] [5] [6]. NGOs and academic teams fill critical gaps but also warn their figures are undercounts because documentation of post‑deportation killings depends on local reporting, family testimony, and investigative capacity in the receiving countries [2] [3]. Advocacy reports further contend many in‑custody deaths were preventable due to medical neglect, but those findings diagnose causes and systemic failure rather than enabling a single global death tally tied strictly to deportation actions [9] [1].
4. Bottom line and competing narratives
The verifiable bottom line is that dozens of people died in ICE detention during the 2017–2020 era and human‑rights investigations have documented multiple cases in which deportees were killed after removal; however, because the U.S. government does not publicly maintain a dataset linking removals to subsequent mortality, a precise, evidence‑based count of “how many deaths during U.S. forcible deportation between 2017 and 2020” cannot be produced from the available public sources [1] [2] [4]. Advocates emphasize that this absence of a consolidated count reflects institutional blind spots and creates incentives for both critics and defenders of enforcement policy to cherry‑pick cases — critics highlighting fatal outcomes and systemic neglect [9] [1], and officials pointing to procedural safeguards and case reviews without a unified post‑removal mortality metric [5] [6].