How many people were shot by ice during obama and why did people not impede ice like under trump

1. What the records say — and what they do not: Obama-era shootings are not neatly counted

Available public reporting and investigative work show that researchers and journalists struggled to compile a comprehensive list of ICE shootings from the Obama years because the agency resisted releasing full logs, prompting lawsuits to obtain records; The Trace’s reporter sued ICE and eventually secured some records after a two‑year fight, but the sources do not provide a clean, agency-published count for the entire Obama era ^[1]. Independent media and watchdogs have published other related figures from Obama’s terms — for example, reporting cites 56 deaths in ICE custody from 2009–2017 — but death-in-custody totals are distinct from shootings and do not answer how many people were shot by ICE while agents were engaged in operations ^[4].

2. A clearer picture under the recent surge — documented shootings during Trump’s enforcement push

Multiple outlets tracked an abrupt rise in gun-related incidents as the Trump administration dramatically expanded interior enforcement: The Guardian reported 16 shootings involving immigration agents identified as of January 9, 2026, and media trackers such as The Trace compiled lists of incidents tied to the 2025–26 enforcement surge ^{[2] [3]}. That reporting also connected the spike in shootings with higher detention populations and a wider deployment of DHS agents in places like Minnesota, where officials cited multiple shootings tied to the federal surge ^{[2] [5]}.

3. Why public resistance looked different under Obama than under Trump — scale, visibility, and political framing

The difference in public attempts to “impede” ICE between the two eras is driven largely by scale and visibility: the Trump administration’s rapid deployments and mass arrests in 2025–26 produced tens of thousands of arrests, large street protests and high‑profile fatal encounters that galvanized visible local resistance and legal countermeasures ^{[6] [5]}. Media context and political rhetoric also mattered — critics point to more aggressive public messaging and claims of broad immunity for agents under Trump, which intensified outrage and mobilized protests, while earlier coverage during the Obama years has been cited by some conservatives as relatively more favorable in tone ^{[6] [7]}. Reporters and scholars note that intensified enforcement, accompanied by claims from officials that agents were facing violence and “terrorist” threats, changed both public perception and how communities responded on the ground ^[3].

4. Institutional and informational gaps that shape both accountability and public reaction

Accountability and public intervention are constrained by opaque records and weak oversight: investigative journalists found it difficult to get comprehensive ICE shooting logs without litigation, and reporting contends that internal discipline for agents who fire their weapons is inconsistently applied — facts that both limit transparent accounting for prior eras and fuel contemporary outrage ^[1]. Separately, partisan and opportunistic narratives in some outlets and aggregators have produced competing statistical claims about ICE performance between administrations, underlining why raw numbers alone do not settle debates about use of force or public response ^{[8] [4]}.

5. Bottom line

The sources do not supply a definitive count of people shot by ICE during the Obama presidency; investigative efforts show substantial record gaps that required legal action to address ^[1]. By contrast, reporting during the Trump enforcement surge documents a clear uptick in shootings and highly visible incidents — for example, 16 shootings tracked by January 2026 — and the combination of scale, rhetoric, and media attention helps explain why public efforts to impede or protest ICE looked markedly different in the most recent period ^{[2] [3] [6]}.