How many people died in ICE custody each year from 2003 to 2025 according to ICE reports?
Executive summary
A precise year-by-year tally "from 2003 to 2025 according to ICE reports" cannot be produced from the documents provided here because the primary official ICE compilation available in these sources covers 10/1/2003–6/5/2017 and the recent year-by-year totals for 2018–2025 are reported in news analyses rather than a single complete ICE table [1] [2]. What can be stated with confidence from the available material is that ICE’s own historical FOIA dataset exists for 2003–2017 [1], ICE reports deaths on a rolling/newsroom and fiscal‑year basis rather than a single calendar table [2] [3], and 2025 stands out as the deadliest year in two decades with roughly 30–32 deaths reported by ICE and multiple news organizations [4] [5] [6] [7].
1. What the records actually cover and how ICE reports deaths
ICE’s official FOIA release contains a compiled list of detainee deaths covering 10/1/2003 through 6/5/2017, which is the authoritative starting point for any year-by-year accounting drawn from ICE reports [1]. Separately, ICE publishes individual Detainee Death Reports and newsroom notices and maintains a Detainee Death Reporting policy that governs notification and follow‑up; the agency issues updates both by fiscal year (Oct–Sep) and through newsroom posts, which complicates simple calendar‑year counts [2] [3].
2. Why a single 2003–2025 ICE table isn’t present in the sourced reporting
None of the supplied sources contains a single consolidated ICE table listing the number of deaths for each calendar year 2003–2025; instead, the FOIA PDF provides case‑level data through mid‑2017 [1], and reporting from 2018–2025 is reconstructed by journalists and watchdogs from ICE newsroom notices, fiscal reports and investigative work [4] [8] [5]. Because ICE often posts individual reports and uses fiscal‑year accounting, independent outlets have had to aggregate counts themselves — leading to slight discrepancies in 2025 totals across outlets [3] [9].
3. Firm figures and verified milestones drawn from available sources
From the material provided, some year markers are clear: 2004 is repeatedly cited as the last year with a comparable high number of deaths — 32 deaths — making 2025 the deadliest year since 2004 [8] [4]. Reporters using ICE notices and investigative aggregation conclude that 2025 saw between 30 and 32 deaths in ICE custody, with multiple outlets — including The Guardian, Project On Government Oversight, Reuters and People — citing 32 deaths and Statista/other summaries noting “at least 30” [4] [5] [6] [7] [3]. NPR reported at least 20 deaths as of October 2025 but noted that the year continued to rise toward the two‑decade high [8].
4. Selected other annual datapoints referenced in coverage
Some other annual figures appear in the sourced reporting: for example, 2005 is noted in one report as having 20 deaths [8], and public summaries mark nine reported deaths in 2018 [9]. However, full annual totals for every calendar year 2003–2025 are not enumerated in the supplied sources, so a complete year‑by‑year list strictly "according to ICE reports" cannot be compiled here without consulting ICE’s full newsroom archive and the FOIA dataset directly [1] [2].
5. Why counts differ across outlets and what that means for the record
Discrepancies among outlets (e.g., “at least 20” vs. “32”) come from timing (NPR’s October snapshot versus end‑of‑year aggregations), ICE’s fiscal vs. calendar reporting, and differences in whether related agencies’ custody deaths (like CBP/Border Patrol) or people released shortly before death are included by journalists or advocates [8] [3] [9]. Watchdog reporting highlights that inspection frequency, reporting practices and classification changes in ICE data over 2025 also affect transparency and public aggregations [5] [10].
6. Bottom line and where to go for a precise year‑by‑year ICE figure
The sources here point to a concrete next step for a definitive year‑by‑year table: consult ICE’s FOIA detainee‑death dataset (covering 2003–2017) and then aggregate ICE newsroom and Detainee Death Reports (and fiscal‑year summaries) for 2017–2025; the FOIA file is explicitly cited in the sources and ICE’s Detainee Death Reporting page explains the agency’s reporting cadence [1] [2]. Based on available reporting, 2025 is the deadliest year since ICE’s 2004 peak, with news organizations converging on roughly 30–32 reported deaths in 2025 [4] [5] [6] [7].