How many immigrants have died under trump administration
Executive summary
Documented deaths tied to federal immigration enforcement under President Trump’s return to the White House are significant but not fully tabulated: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reported 32 people died in its custody in 2025, a record that matched 2004, and additional deaths and lethal uses of force have been reported into January 2026 — though an authoritative, single tally of “how many immigrants have died under [the] Trump administration” does not exist in public records [1] [2] [3].
1. Known ICE custody deaths: a 32-person benchmark for 2025
ICE and multiple news outlets documented that 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025, the agency’s deadliest year in more than two decades and a number that matched ICE’s 2004 record; reporting ties the spike to a surge in detentions as the administration ramped up enforcement [1].
2. Early 2026 deaths and the difficulty of real-time totals
In the weeks after 2025, reporting shows more deaths: Reuters recorded at least four migrants who died in ICE custody during the first 10 days of January 2026, and other outlets noted at least six federal-detention deaths reported in mid-to-late January 2026 — figures that demonstrate counting is ongoing and that calendar- and fiscal-year cutoffs produce differing snapshots [2] [4].
3. Use of lethal force and extra-custodial fatalities
Beyond custody deaths, independent reporting documented lethal incidents involving immigration agents: non-custodial shootings by federal immigration agents have killed several people since mid-2025, with one compilation finding four people killed and multiple shootings overall, underlining that lives lost related to immigration enforcement are not limited to detention-center death certificates [3].
4. Conflicting tallies, fiscal vs. calendar reporting, and official claims
Different organizations and timeframes produce different counts: an advocacy-tracking project and the American Immigration Council reported lower or alternative numbers for specific fiscal periods (for example, a reported 23 deaths in a particular fiscal year), while DHS and ICE emphasize rates and capacities — and the department publicly touted large removals and departures even as journalists tallied custody deaths, creating a contested data landscape [5] [6] [7].
5. Why a single, definitive total is not possible from available reporting
Public sources and government reporting do not present a consolidated, administration-wide count of all immigrant deaths “under the Trump administration” that would include border deaths, deaths in CBP custody, deaths after release while under supervision, or fatalities caused by enforcement actions outside custody; historical reporting also shows that border-death tallies (for earlier Trump years) have been tracked by CBP but that broader death totals tied to enforcement are not centrally tracked and are reported differently by outlets and advocacy groups [8] [9] [10].
6. Bottom line: a minimum, transparent estimate and the unanswered gaps
A defensible, minimum documented figure from the supplied reporting is: at least 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025 (the clearest single-year, agency-confirmed number) plus at least four additional custodial deaths reported in early January 2026 and multiple deaths from agent shootings reported since mid-2025 — together yielding a conservative, documented total of at least about 40 deaths directly tied to federal immigration enforcement activities in this reporting window, while the true total of all immigrants who have died “under the Trump administration” (across all settings, timeframes, and agencies) cannot be confirmed from the available sources because no single, comprehensive government tally is provided [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [9].