Q&A of the Day – How Do ICE Involved Shootings Compare w/Other Law Enforcement Agencies?
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
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Today’s entry: @brianmuddradio Question for you with this 2nd ICE shooting in MN. How do ICE involved shootings compare with other law enforcement agencies? I bet it’s a lot less.
Bottom Line: The short answer is that you're exactly right. Given the microscope ICE is under, that's in turn led to the protests and “ICE Out” movement resulting in Renee Good and Alex Pretti’s deaths – you're certain to hear about every ICE involved shooting. So, let’s get to it...
Since the onset of the second Trump administration, or just over a year, investigative data of federal immigration agents (ICE and Border Patrol) have been involved in a total of 18 reported shootings, resulting in five deaths. What’s more is that despite the surge in ICE activity by the Trump administration over the past year – those totals aren’t massively higher than historical totals. Historical records, for example, show an average of ten annual ICE/Border Patrol involved shootings, resulting in four deaths annually. What we’ve seen is only an increase of eight ICE/Border Patrol involved shootings resulting in only one additional death compared to the norms.
In other words, and you’re almost certain not to hear this anywhere else, on a rate basis for the size of the operations and the amount of activity ICE has engaged in over the past year plus, there have been fewer ICE involved shootings and deaths compared to the typical year. A rather remarkable factoid in this conversation. Specific to other law enforcement agencies, the dynamic is even more dramatic. Starting with other federal law enforcement agencies...
Aggregated data for other major federal agencies (FBI, DEA, ATF, and USMS combined) shows an average of 43 shooting incidents per year, resulting in an average of 30 deaths.
And as for local law enforcement agencies...
ICE's involvement is far fewer than the nationwide totals dominated by local/state police departments.
In 2025, U.S. police overall were involved in over 1,200 actions resulting in deaths (the vast majority via shootings). This is consistent with prior years (1,300 in 2024 and 1,200 in 2023). Now of course with over 18,000 local law enforcement agencies totaling over 980,000 employees (compared to a total of approximately 30,000 total Border Patrol and ICE field agents) – the opportunity is far greater. However, even on a rate basis there’s a significant storyline...
- In 2025 there was one law enforcement involved death for every 817 police officers
- Since January 20th of 2025, or over a year, there’s only been one officer involved death for every 6,000 Border Patrol/ICE field agents
In other words...
- Someone is greater than 7 times more likely to die with a local law enforcement operation in comparison to an ICE/Border Patrol operation
This isn’t to say that local law enforcement necessarily is doing anything wrong or that they should be under greater scrutiny, but rather it illustrates the massive disconnect between reality and media/Leftist narratives. As always there are two sides to stories and one side to facts. These are the facts.