Fact Check: Did 67 people die in ICE custody during Obama's presidency?
WASHINGTON, DC: In January 2026, several social media users claimed that during former President Barack Obama's eight years in office, 67 people died while in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The claim circulated online as several Americans protested President Donald Trump's mass deployment of ICE and other federal agencies in cities including Minneapolis. But is there any truth to this? Let us find out below.
Claim: 67 people died in ICE custody during Obama's presidency
Social media posts claimed that the number of deaths under Barack Obama meant people were protesting not because they objected to ICE's use of force, but because the protesters just 'Hate Trump'.
A Facebook post read, "67 people killed by ICE under Obama. No riots and no protests. If you did not post THEN, you just Hate Trump now."
Similarly, another Facebook post read, "The Obama years saw migrant detention systems plagued by documented issues of substandard medical care, contributing to preventable deaths - all under the director of Barack Obama. According to the ACLU, those violations in medical standards factored into at least eight deaths between 2010 and 2012 alone."
"About 67 total deaths happened during Obama's full time in office, according to ICE records," the post added.
Fact Check: True, public records released by agency confirm it
The claims made in the online posts are true, as public records released by the agency with secondary sources of information confirm it.
However, posts sharing the claim failed to mention that more people died in ICE custody during Trump's five years as president than during Obama's eight.
Furthermore, the posts also did not mention that protests against Obama's immigration policies did occur during his time in office. However, they were not as large as anti-ICE protests under Trump.
As per ICE's website, since 2018, federal law requires that the agency publicly disclose the death of anyone in its custody within 90 days. The website contains a list of such deaths from April 2018 onward.
As per a table by ICE, which was obtained by Snopes, there were indeed 67 people who died while in ICE custody during that period.
The table mentioned that 22 deaths were due to complications from chronic illnesses, including cancer, organ failure, hypertension, diabetes, and COPD, among others.
Similarly, 12 deaths were due to acute events, like heart attacks, strokes, aneurysms, and seizures, among others, while 11 deaths did not have enough information to classify.
Moreover, 10 deaths were due to infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, pneumonia, staphylococcus, rabies, and sepsis.
