How many people were killed in ice raids during Obama terms
Executive summary
Contemporary reporting and NGO analyses identify 56 deaths in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody during President Barack Obama’s time in office, but the sources uniformly describe these as deaths in custody rather than being explicitly killed during ICE raids, leaving a critical definitional gap between “killed in raids” and “died while detained” [1] [2] [3] ACLU-DWN-NIJC.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">[4].
1. What the available counts actually say
Multiple published investigations and advocacy reports cite a tally of 56 individuals who died in ICE custody over the course of the Obama administration; that number appears in an NGO-led report summarized by the National Immigrant Justice Center and in coverage by independent outlets that drew on FOIA-obtained documents [1] [2] [4] [3]. These sources attribute many of the deaths to medical neglect or failures in detention medical care rather than to lethal use of force during arrest operations, and they document that suicides and suicide attempts were included in the count [2] [4].
2. The definitional problem: “killed in raids” versus “died in custody”
None of the supplied reporting equates the 56 deaths directly to being “killed in ICE raids”; the phrase “killed in raids” implies deaths during the arrest event itself, whereas the cited work consistently describes deaths that occurred while individuals were held in ICE detention facilities or under ICE custody after apprehension [1] [2] [4]. Because the sources do not break down how many of the deaths occurred at the moment of arrest, during transport, in facilities, or after transfer to hospitals, the data cannot be read as a direct count of people “killed in raids” without additional, more granular records [4] [2].
3. Sources, methods and potential biases
The 56-death figure comes from a coalition report produced by advocacy organizations (ACLU, Detention Watch Network, National Immigrant Justice Center) that relied on government documents and FOIA disclosures, a methodology that surfaces previously hidden records but also reflects an advocacy framing focused on detention conditions and medical neglect [1] [4] [2]. Independent outlets and retrospective pieces repeat the same figure [3], while contemporary news accounts from other periods emphasize different metrics—such as year-by-year custody deaths in 2025—highlighting how different actors foreground different numbers to make policy arguments [5] [6].
4. Contextual comparison and why advocates emphasize the number
Advocates use the 56-death total to argue that Obama-era reforms did not eliminate preventable deaths in detention and to press for systemic oversight changes; the Fatal Neglect report specifically links many deaths to substandard medical care and deficient inspection practices [4] [1]. Other reporting compares administration-era totals across time—e.g., noting 32 deaths in ICE custody in 2025—to frame trends in enforcement intensity and detention outcomes, but such comparisons are only meaningful if the underlying categorizations (what counts as an ICE custody death, what counts as a raid-related death) are the same [5] [6].
5. Bottom line answer and reporting limitations
Based on the provided reporting, the best-cited, document-backed figure for deaths associated with ICE custody during the Obama administration is 56 individuals, a number derived from FOIA-sourced analyses and NGO reports, but that figure should not be presented as the number “killed in raids” because the sources do not attribute those deaths specifically to raid operations versus deaths that occurred later in detention or after medical deterioration [1] [2] [4] [3]. The reporting is explicit about its limits: it documents deaths in custody and highlights systemic causes like poor medical care, but it does not supply a separate, verifiable count of people killed at the moment of arrest during ICE raids [4] [2].