How many illegal immigrants died during Obama presidency ICE raids
Executive summary
The best figure available in the supplied reporting for people who died while in ICE custody during the Obama administration is 56 deaths, a tally cited in a coalition report by the ACLU, Detention Watch Network and the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) titled “Fatal Neglect” and summarized by the NIJC [1] [2]. None of the provided sources supply a distinct, independently verified count of people who died specifically “during ICE raids” (as opposed to deaths while detained or in ICE custody), so any narrower claim about deaths occurring only at the moment of arrest or during raid operations cannot be supported from these materials [2] [1].
1. What the coalition reports actually measured
The ACLU/DWN/NIJC report examines deaths in ICE custody and defects in medical care and monitoring at detention facilities, and its summary states that 56 individuals died while in ICE custody during the Obama administration—this is a count of deaths in custody, not a count of deaths that occurred in the course of enforcement raids on private homes or workplaces [1] [2]. The report’s focus is institutional: it documents failures in inspections, medical care and death reviews that the NGOs link to a continued pattern of preventable fatalities inside detention centers [2] [1].
2. Why “in custody” is not the same as “during raids”
The supplied reporting makes a clear distinction between detention deaths and enforcement operations: “in custody” deaths occur after apprehension, often in detention centers or while detained by ICE contractors, whereas “during raids” implies fatalities at the time of arrest or in the field; the ACLU/DWN/NIJC materials and the NIJC press release only provide the custody figure and do not break out how many—if any—of those 56 deaths happened at the moment of an ICE raid or arrest [1] [2]. Journalistic and NGO scrutiny that prompted Obama-era reforms centered on deaths after detention and on systemic medical neglect, not on a comprehensive tally of deaths during operations [2].
3. Broader context on enforcement and mortality reporting
Analyses of the Obama administration’s enforcement policies describe a shift in detention and removals but do not provide a separate, authoritative database of deaths occurring specifically during enforcement actions; policy and statistics pieces like Migration Policy’s review of Obama-era deportations focus on apprehensions, removals and program changes and do not enumerate raid-related fatalities [3]. Investigative projects such as FRONTLINE examined the scale and human impact of Obama-era deportation and detention practices, but likewise emphasize deportation totals and detention conditions over a raid-specific mortality figure [4].
4. Sources, agendas and why numbers vary
The 56-death figure comes from advocacy organizations that foreground detention abuses and poor medical care—an explicit framing that aims to push for reform and accountability [1] [2]. That framing is legitimate journalism and civil-rights advocacy, but it also means the tally emphasizes custody deaths and institutional failings; official ICE or DHS reports may use different criteria, and the supplied reporting does not include an ICE/DHS counter-count for the same period to reconcile methodologies [2] [1].
5. What is and is not available in this reporting
From the documents presented, the accurate, supportable answer is: 56 people died while in ICE custody during the Obama administration according to the ACLU/DWN/NIJC reporting and NIJC summary [1] [2]. The materials do not provide a verified number of people who died specifically during ICE raids or at the moment of arrest, nor do they present an ICE- or DHS-authored dataset breaking down deaths by circumstance of apprehension vs. detention [2] [3].
6. Why further verification matters
Determining how many people died “during raids” would require granular incident-level data—coroner reports, ICE after-action reviews, DHS death investigations or comprehensive FOIA disclosures—that are not included in the supplied sources; without those, it is not possible to isolate raid-time fatalities from the more general custody-death tally reported by NGOs [2] [1]. Any definitive claim beyond the custody figure would need cross-checking with official DHS/ICE records or investigative reporting that explicitly separates raid deaths from detention deaths [3] [2].