How many undocumented immigrants were killed during the Obama Administration
Executive summary
Contemporary reporting and advocacy research do not converge on a single figure for how many undocumented immigrants were killed during the Obama administration; counts differ depending on whether the measure is deaths in U.S. custody, deaths documented after deportation, or which agency records are used. The most cited, source-documented range for people who died while in ICE custody under President Obama runs roughly from 56 to 67, while separate investigations identify additional migrants killed after deportation abroad [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. What the question most likely means — custody vs. post-deportation deaths
The clearest way reporters and researchers have tried to answer “How many undocumented immigrants were killed during the Obama Administration” is by separating (A) deaths that occurred while people were in U.S. immigration custody and (B) killings of people after they were deported or returned to their home countries; many public figures conflate the two, producing confusion in the record [1] [4].
2. Deaths documented in ICE custody — the 56 figure
A coalition report—Fatal Neglect, produced by the ACLU, Detention Watch Network and the National Immigrant Justice Center—counted 56 individuals who died in ICE custody during the Obama years based on documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests and death reviews, and used that total to underline systemic medical-care failures in detention facilities [1] [5] [2].
3. Alternative government-statistics totals — the 67 figure and other official tallies
Other accounts relying on different ICE compilations or public statements have produced different totals; FactCheck cited ICE data that identified 67 immigrants who died in ICE custody during the Obama years, noting also that none of those 67 were children according to the ICE data they reviewed [3]. These discrepancies reflect differing FOIA disclosures, time windows, and whether later-revealed cases were folded into official counts [3] [6].
4. What human-rights investigations add — case reviews and causes
Human Rights Watch analyzed 18 death reviews from mid-2012 to mid-2015 and found substandard medical care likely contributed to at least seven of those deaths, showing that beyond raw totals there are qualitative findings about cause and preventability [7]. The ACLU and partners used similar document-driven methods to argue that systemic failures in oversight and medical care underpinned many in-custody deaths [5] [6].
5. Deaths after deportation — the Guardian’s count of killings abroad
A separate line of inquiry tracks people deported from the U.S. who were murdered after return: The Guardian’s investigation and an academic study it cites identified as many as 83 deportees murdered in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras since January 2014, a figure that speaks to the lethal consequences of removals but is not the same metric as “died in U.S. custody” [4].
6. Why figures differ — definitions, sources and institutional incentives
Numbers diverge because advocates’ FOIA-based tallies, internal agency compilations, media investigations and human-rights reviews use different definitions (custody deaths vs. post-deportation killings), timeframes, and access to records; advocacy groups emphasize undercounting and hidden cases, while government summaries have historically omitted or revised some incidents, prompting litigation and new disclosures [5] [6].
Conclusion — the best short answer possible from available reporting
Based on available, source-cited reporting, the best-supported answer is that between roughly 56 and 67 people died while in ICE custody during the Obama administration, depending on which compilation and time-window one accepts, and that additional deportees were subsequently murdered after return (as many as 83 in Central America since 2014 per The Guardian’s reporting) — but the record remains fragmented and contested across government datasets and independent reviews [1] [2] [3] [4] [7].