Where US citizens shot by ICE during Obamas presidency
Executive summary
The available reporting does not show clear, documented cases in which U.S. citizens were shot by ICE agents during Barack Obama’s presidency; the sources instead document deaths in ICE custody and historical abuses, but not shootings of U.S. citizens by ICE in that period [1] [2]. Advocacy groups and commentators note serious mistreatment and many detention deaths under Obama, yet the specific claim that ICE shot U.S. citizens during the Obama years is not supported by the provided material [1] [3].
1. What the sources actually document about deaths under Obama
A coalition report cited in the materials—produced by the ACLU, Detention Watch Network and the National Immigrant Justice Center—states that 56 people died while in ICE custody during the Obama administration, documenting systemic medical neglect and oversight failures in detention facilities [1] [2]. Those findings describe deaths in detention that advocates attribute to poor medical care and inspection failures rather than field shootings by ICE officers, and the report frames the problem as institutional neglect rather than a pattern of on-street lethal force by ICE toward U.S. citizens [1] [2].
2. Distinction between “deaths in custody” and “officer shootings”
The provided sources make an important legal and factual distinction: deaths that occur in detention settings—illness, neglect, or in-custody incidents—are not the same as shootings by agents in field operations, and the ACLU/NIJC report focuses on detention deaths and medical failures rather than agents firing weapons during arrests of U.S. citizens [1] [2]. Contemporary coverage of high-profile shootings in the supplied files concerns incidents from 2025–2026 and involve agents operating under a different administration, not the Obama presidency [4] [5] [6].
3. Historical context and allegations of agency violence under Obama
Advocacy groups and some commentary argue the Border Patrol and immigration enforcement were abusive during the Obama years and point to investigative reporting that led to detention reforms in 2009, suggesting longstanding problems with oversight and lethal incidents in the broader immigration enforcement system [3] [2]. These critiques provide context for later public scrutiny of enforcement tactics, but the material supplied does not tie a documented pattern of ICE agents shooting U.S. citizens specifically to the Obama administration [3] [2].
4. What the recent reporting shows and why it matters for the question
Multiple news accounts in the packet describe two U.S. citizens—Renee Good and Alex Pretti—killed by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis in January 2026, and these articles explicitly frame those events as occurring under the Trump administration and trigger bipartisan outrage and calls for investigation [4] [7] [5] [8]. Those contemporary cases highlight why questioners might conflate recent shootings with past administrations, but they do not provide evidence that similar shootings of U.S. citizens occurred during Obama’s presidency [4] [7] [5].
5. Limits of the available record and alternative interpretations
The sources supplied are explicit about their scope: the detention-reporting documents many in-custody deaths during Obama but do not catalogue field shootings of U.S. citizens by ICE during that period [1] [2]. It is possible that other records, local police investigations, or FOIA releases outside the provided corpus could document officer-involved shootings in earlier years; the present collection simply does not contain such evidence, and therefore cannot support a claim that U.S. citizens were shot by ICE under Obama [1] [2]. Advocacy pieces warning of Border Patrol brutality under Obama provide critical perspective but are not definitive proof of shootings of U.S. citizens by ICE during that administration [3].