We Don't Know How Many People Have Been Harmed by ICE

[Celerity]

How decades of inaction on police reform paved the road for ICE’s lack of transparency

https://prospect.org/2026/01/21/ice-trump-minnesota-minneapolis-accountability-violence-deaths/


Aliya Rahman is detained by federal agents near the scene where Renee Good was fatally shot by an ICE officer earlier this month, January 13, 2026, in Minneapolis. Credit: Adam Gray/AP Photo

Earlier this month, the nation erupted after Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was shot to death by an ICE agent after attempting to leave a Minneapolis enforcement action in her SUV. Good’s death was notable not just for its cruelty, but also for how the widely circulated video of the incident offered a glimpse into the increasingly unchecked violence of federal law enforcement and ICE in particular. During the second Trump administration, ICE has grown dramatically in both size and authority. Yet the true scope of how that authority has been wielded against the public remains unclear. Currently, ICE is not required to report any use-of-force incidents against the public, typically defined as resulting in a death or serious bodily injury. Indeed, we know little about the full extent of ongoing violence from any federal law enforcement agency, in part due to a decades-long legislative failure to establish a compulsory national database on use-of-force incidents.

For decades, the fight to establish a repository for all national data on law enforcement violence has been waged silently in the background of police reform movements. The first attempt to initiate such an effort was a provision of the 1994 crime bill, which directed the attorney general of the United States to “acquire data about the use of excessive force by law enforcement officers” and publish an annual summary. Omitted from this rule was a mechanism that required agencies to participate in such a survey, leading to inaction and missing data. Since then, multiple avenues have been taken up to close this loophole, with none yet having fully succeeded. The most significant effort thus far to create a national use-of-force database for federal and state law enforcement agencies was initiated by the FBI in 2019. The database is voluntary, though over the years, many agencies have participated in supplying their information.

However, none of the data has been made public, due to a provision that it only be released if the participation meets an 80 percent threshold of all law enforcement agencies; as of August 2025, participation remains at 78 percent. FOIA requests have revealed that federal agencies like ICE contributed information to the database as recently as 2024. Yet because publication is not required by law, many remain doubtful as to whether the Trump-led FBI would ultimately release the data, even if the participation threshold were reached. “I suspect that the Trump administration doesn’t have much interest in police use-of-force data,” said Matthew J. Hickman, chair of the Department of Criminal Justice at Seattle University and former statistician for the Bureau of Justice Statistics. “I’m not saying that out of the blue. I have actually experienced the current administration’s distaste for data about police accountability,” he added, referring to the Trump administration’s move to shut down a national law enforcement misconduct database early last year.

Where Congress has failed to act, a collection of nonprofits, academics, and journalists have stepped in to fill the gaps by combing together news reports on use-of-force incidents into publicly accessible databases. Most recently, nonprofit newsroom The Trace began collecting information in this fashion, including on shootings by ICE. But while these databases provide strong insight into law enforcement violence, they’re no substitute for a compulsory national system. While research at the state level is quite strong, federal data remains limited, and both are often tied to information that agencies decide to reveal—a reality many researchers are not shy to admit. “It’s insane that agencies are not required to report when they kill a civilian,” said Andrew Zaharia, director of data science at Campaign Zero, a police reform nonprofit that runs the independent police killings database Mapping Police Violence. “That’s outrageous … we’d rather not have to collect this data, it would be better if they just reported it themselves.”

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[SocialDemocrat61]

1. Police reform has been needed for decades.

Unfortunately, it’s unpopular in many parts of country. I supported the defund the police movement and thought it was unfair it was blamed for democratic losses in 22. Even democrats like Abigail Spanberger blamed after that election.

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R