how many people were shot by ICE during Obama’s presidency
Executive summary
The sources provided do not supply a verified count of how many people were shot by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during Barack Obama’s presidency, and therefore a precise answer cannot be produced from this reporting alone [1] [2]. What is available in the materials is reporting about recent ICE shootings in 2026 and a separate advocacy report that counts deaths in ICE custody during the Obama era, not shootings attributable specifically to agent use of force [3] [1] [2].
1. What the question actually asks and why it matters
The user seeks a tally of people shot by ICE during the eight years of the Obama administration, a figure that measures agent use-of-force incidents and has obvious implications for oversight, policy and public accountability; none of the sources supplied contains an authoritative, administration-wide catalog of agent-involved shootings for 2009–2017 [1] [2].
2. What the provided reporting does show — deaths in custody vs. shootings
An advocacy consortium’s report cited here states that 56 individuals died while in ICE custody during the Obama administration, a statistic about in-custody deaths rather than an itemized list of shootings by ICE officers on the street or during enforcement actions [1]. Separate items in the set chronicle high-profile ICE-involved fatal shootings in Minneapolis in 2026 and contemporaneous political reactions, which are incidents outside the Obama period and therefore not direct evidence of Obama-era shootings [3] [4] [5].
3. Why the available counts are not the same as the requested figure
Deaths in ICE custody and officer-involved shootings are overlapping but different measures: custody deaths may include medical neglect, suicide, overdose or other causes while shootings encompass use-of-firearm incidents in enforcement contexts; the provided ACLU/NIJC/Detention Watch Network reporting reports total custody deaths under Obama but does not attribute how many of those were the result of ICE agents shooting detainees [1]. The other sources focus on specific 2026 shootings and a Wikipedia list that documents shootings in the second Trump administration, which again are not a comprehensive record for 2009–2017 [3] [2].
4. Data gaps, reporting practices and institutional incentives
Federal recordkeeping on agent use-of-force has historically been fragmented across DHS components and redactions, and public tallies often rely on media compilations, agency releases or advocacy audits rather than a single public database — factors that create a plausible explanation for the lack of a clear Obama-era shooting total in the supplied documents [1] [2]. Political actors and advocacy groups have incentives to emphasize different metrics — for example, watchdogs highlight custody deaths to press reform while other coverage spotlights recent, high-profile shootings to drive immediate accountability — a dynamic visible in the mix of sources provided [1] [3].
5. How one would reliably obtain the number
A definitive answer would require assembling federal use-of-force reports from DHS components (ICE, CBP), DOJ investigations, agency press releases and contemporaneous local reporting for 2009–2017, or filing Freedom of Information Act requests for ICE use-of-force logs for the Obama years; none of the documents supplied here contains that compiled dataset [1] [2]. Media compilations and academic studies that specifically analyze federal law‑enforcement shootings across those years would be the best next step, but such sources were not included among the materials provided [2].
6. Bottom line: what can and cannot be stated from the supplied reporting
From the material at hand it cannot be stated how many people were shot by ICE during Obama’s presidency because the sources either report custody deaths under Obama (56 deaths cited) or detail shootings from other periods (notably 2026) and secondary compilations covering later administrations; therefore a precise count for 2009–2017 is not supported by the provided reporting [1] [3] [2]. Any definitive numeric claim about agent-involved shootings under Obama would require additional primary records or a comprehensive, contemporaneous investigative compilation that is absent from the supplied sources [1] [2].