How many people have ICE killed while trump is in office compared to when obama was in office
Executive summary
Public reporting shows far more high-profile deaths in ICE custody under President Trump’s second-term enforcement surge than were recorded in many years of the Obama presidency, but the exact totals depend on which dataset and timeframe are used; advocacy groups and media place the Obama-era toll roughly in the mid‑dozens and the 2025 Trump surge alone at roughly two to three dozen deaths [1] [2] [3]. Caution is required: different organizations count different years, include deaths in hospitals while technically in ICE custody or shootings by immigration agents, and the Trump presidency in question is ongoing, so direct one‑to‑one presidential comparisons are imprecise [4] [5] [6].
1. Counting the dead: reported tallies for Obama and Trump
Advocacy and investigative reporting puts the number of people who died while in ICE custody during the Obama administration in the mid‑to‑high dozens—one coalition report cites 56 deaths during Obama’s years (ACLU/DWN/NIJC matrix cited by NIJC, p1_s5) while other sources and public data references note different totals (FactCheck summaries reference figures such as 67 deaths in ICE custody during the Obama years) illustrating variation in counting and time windows [7] [1]. For the Trump administration’s recent term the reporting is more concentrated: The Guardian’s tracking and related coverage recorded 32 deaths in ICE custody in 2025 alone—the deadliest year since 2004—while other trackers and the American Immigration Council reported fiscal‑year tallies of around 23 deaths for parts of that period, reflecting different fiscal versus calendar definitions and reporting lags [2] [3].
2. Why the numbers disagree: definitions, windows and sources
Differences in tallies are driven by methodology: some counts include only deaths that occurred inside detention facilities, others include detainees who died in hospitals while still under ICE custody, and some trackers aggregate by fiscal year versus calendar year or presidential term, producing divergent totals [2] [3]. Independent auditors and watchdogs have warned that ICE’s internal reviews and public disclosures are incomplete or inconsistent—Human Rights Watch’s analyses of death reviews and the ACLU/NIJC reporting both conclude systemic reporting and medical‑care problems that complicate transparent counting [5] [1]. Conversely, think tanks that focus on rates rather than raw counts point to lower per‑capita death rates in certain periods, underscoring how choice of denominator (detainee population vs. absolute deaths) changes the comparative story [4].
3. Policy and population context matter to any comparison
The spike in deaths reported for 2025 coincided with a dramatic increase in the detained population—reporting notes a near‑50% surge under the recent enforcement push—and overcrowding, stretched medical services and mental‑health crises are repeatedly cited as proximate factors linked to higher death counts [2] [3]. Advocacy groups and journalists have documented cases where families and lawyers allege inadequate medical care before deaths, while other reporting highlights incidents of use of force and shootings involving immigration agents that also produced fatalities or injuries, complicating attributions of responsibility solely to detention conditions [1] [8] [6].
4. Attribution: did ICE “kill” these people?
Legal and journalistic standards separate deaths in custody from affirmative state‑caused killings; reported causes include medical neglect, suicides, and fatal shootings by agents, and many advocates argue systemic negligence makes ICE responsible in a broader moral and operational sense [1] [2] [8]. Some commentators and analysts—particularly critics of expanded enforcement—frame the agency’s policies and overcrowding as root causes; other observers and some statistical analyses emphasize death rates per detainee-year or point to improvements over earlier eras, which can temper claims that ICE is intrinsically more lethal under one administration versus another [4] [5]. Available reporting does not deliver a single definitive forensic attribution that would allow an unequivocal count of people “killed by ICE” strictly as an agency‑action causal verdict.
5. Bottom line: what the data permit as a direct answer
Using publicly available reporting: during the Obama presidency multiple sources record roughly mid‑to‑high dozens of deaths in ICE custody (examples include a 56‑death figure cited by NIJC/ACLU/DWN and other public tallies that differ) [1] [7], whereas reporting for the Trump administration’s recent enforcement surge documents a much deadlier single year—32 deaths in ICE custody in 2025 alone—with fiscal‑year tallies reported around 23 by some trackers depending on the counting method [2] [3]. Because the Trump term in these reports is ongoing, because sources use different inclusion rules, and because causation is contested, the most accurate statement is that reported deaths under Trump’s recent surge are concentrated and unusually high in a single year compared with annualized Obama‑era figures, but exact comparative totals vary by source and definition [2] [1] [4].