Were there ice shooting during during obama

1. The simple answer: shootings did occur under Obama

Multiple investigations and reporting make clear that ICE agents employed deadly force during the Obama administration, and that killings and deaths in detention are not unique to a single presidency; journalist Lila Hassan recounts suing ICE to obtain logs that include shootings from the Obama years, indicating agent-involved shootings took place before subsequent administrations ^[1], and advocacy groups note dozens of deaths in ICE custody during the Obama era ^[2].

2. Numbers, but with important distinctions

Public-facing tallies are uneven: an advocacy coalition cited 56 deaths in ICE custody during the Obama administration, a figure describing deaths while detained rather than only agent shootings ^[2]. That number reflects medical neglect, suicides and other in-custody fatalities as well as cases where force may have been a factor; it does not by itself equal a count of officer-involved shootings, and the sources provided do not offer a definitive, vetted list that separates those categories ^[2].

3. Why precise accounting has been elusive

Independent researchers and reporters had to sue ICE for records because the agency resisted releasing logs and incident-level files; Hassan’s multi-year lawsuit and subsequent reporting show ICE initially supplied a number but withheld the underlying records, forcing external parties to litigate to see the agency’s shooting logs from the Obama years through later administrations ^[1]. That legal fight underscores an institutional opacity that complicates definitive, public tallies.

4. Context matters: detention deaths vs. on-scene shootings

Coverage from advocacy groups and watchdogs focuses heavily on substandard medical care and systemic failures that contributed to deaths in custody, which include but are not limited to shootings by agents ^[2]. Meanwhile investigative pieces that obtained ICE shooting logs highlight officer-involved shootings as a discrete phenomenon — sometimes unreported until the logs were released — meaning both categories of harm coexisted during the Obama administration ^{[1] [2]}.

5. Political and institutional accountability threads

Reporting since has tied these incidents to debates over oversight: critics say ICE’s operational scope and limited external scrutiny allowed deadly incidents to recur across administrations, while the agency’s reluctance to release records necessitated lawsuits and sustained journalism to hold it to account ^[1]. Those dynamics mean discussions about “ICE shootings” during Obama intersect with broader critiques of DHS-era enforcement priorities and transparency ^[3].

6. What the available sources do not resolve

The provided material confirms that shootings by federal immigration agents occurred during the Obama years and that dozens died in ICE custody in that period ^{[1] [2]}, but it does not supply a comprehensive, itemized public ledger separating agent-fired shootings from other modes of in-custody death; therefore a precise count of officer-involved shootings under Obama cannot be declared from these sources alone ^{[1] [2]}.

7. How to read competing narratives

Those defending ICE point to the difficulty and danger of enforcement work and emphasize lawful uses of force; critics and advocacy organizations emphasize systemic neglect, opaque reporting, and patterns of preventable deaths that persisted through multiple administrations ^{[1] [2]}. Independent journalists and watchdogs have positioned themselves as the primary counters to official silence, filing suits and publishing records to illuminate what federal agencies did not voluntarily disclose ^[1].