Eight people killed by ICE (5) or Border Patrol Agents (3) since January 20th, 2025. Any death is tragic, but these individuals were not blameless. Annual Average Customs & Border Protection Fatal Encounters under Trump are half what they were under Biden

Over 600,000 people have been booked into ICE detention centers between January 20th, 2025 and July 31, 2026. At the same time, there have been about 170,000 border apprehensions (155,000 at the southwest-border and another 15,000 nationwide). So with eight dead, that comes to a rate of 0.0010% of these encounters. our about one per 100,000 people. We have previously written on comparing the Obama and Trump administrations on issues such as people dying in ICE custody, ICE erroneously arresting U.S. Citizens, and mistakenly deporting US citizens. In all those categories, the Trump administration is doing much better than Obama. Unfortunately, the Biden administration didn’t keep data on these issues. As shown below, even including the eight deaths listed below, Annual average Customs and Border Protection Fatal Encounters under Trump are half what they were under Biden, and that even includes deaths from ICE in Trump but not under Biden.

This has become an issue again as ICE shot a Dominican criminal illegal alien on October 8th, 2026. Bill Melugin with Fox News reports on that case: “ICE announces that the Dominican criminal illegal alien shot by ICE in the Bronx yesterday previously fled from ICE in September, and ICE didn’t pursue. Yesterday, ICE says they tried to block him in with several vehicles and he tried to flee again by ramming the ICE cars. ICE says they also had a detainer on him on a prior arrest last year, but NYC released him and ignored the detainer. ICE says because he’s a known flight risk, they now have him in detention outside of New York.”

Some perspective is needed also in understanding the difficulties facing these officers. DHS reported a 1,347% increase in assaults against ICE law enforcement, citing 275 recorded assaults from January through December 2025, compared to 19 during the same period in 2024. DHS reported a 3,200% to 3,300% increase in vehicular attacks against immigration agents, rising to 68 or more incidents in 2025/early 2026 compared to just 2 incidents during the prior year. In addition, there is documented evidence that anti-ICE protesters and activists have gone to ICE officers’ homes, followed officers home, exposed their residential addresses, and intimidated or threatened their families. Some incidents have resulted in criminal convictions. Partial list of these attacks is shown at the end of this post.

It is useful to compare the change in assault on ICE officer to the use of force in ICE Detention Facilities between 2024 and 2025. The assaults on officers seems comparable to the use of force on detainees since neither measures actual injuries. While the increase in the number of use-of-force incidents was only 2.7% of the increase in assaults on ICE officers, it is almost the same as the percentage increase in the number of detainees processed.

One comparison is to look at the Customs and Border Protection fatal encounters compiled in the Southern Border Communities Coalition’s CBP file, which includes medical deaths and crashes. Its 2025 and 2026 totals mix later ICE cases into the same list, so they will raise the deaths in those two years relative to other years. Even with that inclusion, the data for 2025 shows a lower total of fatal encounters than during any year of the Biden administration. The Southern Border Communities Coalition’s numbers are similar to that for the ACLU of Texas, but there numbers only go up to 2023. The Southern Border Communities Coalition is considered a left-of-center or progressive advocacy organization, and is labor union-funded, so these numbers are not biased in favor of Trump.

Before looking at individual cases there are three points to make.

1) While any death is tragic, these individuals were not blameless. They would likely be alive today if they hadn’t done things like ram agents with their vehicles or engage in a shoot out with agents or fight them. All of those deaths involve one of those cases. They also involved people not obeying lawful orders by law enforcement.

2) In places such as Minnesota, if local police had been involved to control those interfering with ICE agents, such confrontations would likely have been avoided.

3) If local sanctuary jurisdictions would let ICE pick up illegal aliens who are being released from incarceration, there would likely be fewer problems. It is more dangerous to pick up criminal illegals who are wandering around free.

If we have missed any cases, please let us know.

Five of these cases, with three of them illegal aliens, involved a ramming, dragging, or trying to run over ICE agents with a car:

• Ruben Ray Martinez (U.S. citizen, South Padre Island, Texas, March 2025, ICE): agents said he rammed a car into an agent.
• Silverio Villegas González (Mexican national, Chicago area, September 2025, ICE): agents said he hit and dragged an officer with his vehicle.
• Renee Good (U.S. citizen, Minneapolis, January 2026, ICE): Good struck an officer with her car and ignored verbal orders from an officer.
• Lorenzo Salgado Araujo (Mexican national, Houston, July 2026, ICE): DHS said he repeatedly fled different scenes and he rammed an ICE vehicle and tried to run over an officer.
• Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero (Colombian national, Biddeford, Maine, July 2026, ICE): agents said he tried to flee and rammed officers with his vehicle. “the vehicle attempted to flee the scene and fearing for public safety an officer discharged his weapon.”

Three additional cases all involving Border Patrol agents:

• Ophelia Bauckholt — German national, January 20, 2025, Coventry, Vermont. Killed in a shootout with Border Patrol agents after a vehicle stop near the Canadian border.
• Alex Pretti — U.S. citizen, January 24, 2026, Minneapolis. Shot by Border Patrol agents; Pretti put himself between officers and people they were trying to arrest, disobeyed orders from officers to stop, got into a physical confrontation with officers, and was carrying a gun. If an officer knows or suspects an individual is armed, any non-compliance—such as reaching toward a waistband, moving hands out of sight, or ignoring commands to stay still—is much more likely to be interpreted as an immediate threat to the officer’s life. Standard concealed carry instruction explicitly advises permit holders to act with extreme caution to ensure officers do not feel endangered. Video footage from a Minneapolis protest on January 13, 2026 (11 days before his death) captured Pretti cursing at federal immigration officers, spitting at them, and kicking/breaking the taillight of a federal SUV.
• Isaias Sanchez Barboza — Mexican national, December 11, 2025, Rio Grande City, Texas. Shot by a Border Patrol agent while allegedly trying to flee back toward Mexico. An agent tried to arrest Sanchez Barbosa, a fight broke out within about four minutes, the agent radioed for help, and he fired in self-defense during the struggle.

Cases not directly connected to immigration enforcement, but sometimes included in lists of deaths related to ICE and border patrol agents.

• Keith Porter (U.S. citizen, Northridge, California, December 2025, off-duty ICE agent): DHS described it as an “active shooter” situation in which the agent responded to gunfire and acted in self-defense after Porter allegedly pointed a rifle. Porter’s family and attorneys say he was firing celebratory shots into the air for New Year’s and posed no threat; a rifle was recovered. The case has been under local LAPD and district attorney review (with family calls for charges or a grand jury). It was not an on-duty immigration enforcement operation.⁠
• James Douglas McMillan (no mention of non-citizen status, Sierra Blanca, Texas, March 2026, Border Patrol): He fled a Border Patrol checkpoint after a drug dog alerted, then fired at pursuing officers (including BORTAC/Border Patrol) and civilians during a high-speed chase in a reportedly stolen vehicle. He was shot and killed in a multi-agency response (primarily described as involving Texas DPS troopers returning fire, with Border Patrol involved in the pursuit and life-saving efforts). It began at a border checkpoint but was a multi-agency shootout and began as a drug enforcement response.⁠
• Jonah Neal (U.S. citizen, Memphis, Tennessee, May 2026, Homeland Security Investigations): The HSI agent involved was there as part of the federal law enforcement surge Trump directed for Memphis, not a standard immigration enforcement operation. The agent was assigned to the Memphis Safe Task Force, a multi-agency operation created by a presidential memorandum signed by President Donald Trump on September 15, 2025 (“Restoring Law and Order in Memphis”). Members of the Memphis Safe Task Force responded to a call about a man armed with a gun who was threatening to harm himself. They encountered Jonah Neal inside the residence with multiple weapons. Outlets such as CBS News includes this as people killed “during Trump’s deportation crackdown,” but that is difficult to understand the connection here.
• Kenneth Richard Sok (U.S. citizen, Blythe, California, July 2026, Border Patrol): Agents attempted to pull him over for unspecified reasons. He fled in a pursuit, struck a pedestrian (who was airlifted), then got out and allegedly charged at agents with a sword, injuring one. Agents shot and killed him. He likely ran from agents and then attacked them because he was later connected by Long Beach police to a fatal hit-and-run of a bicyclist days earlier (ruled a homicide by the medical examiner). It was not publicly confirmed as an immigration enforcement action.⁠

Here is the list of where anti-ICE activists went to ICE officers’ homes.