Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Kristi Noem, Border Czar Tom Homan, and others have repeatedly stated that being an ICE or Border Patrol agent is a dangerous job. The facts don’t support them.
Two ICE agents have been murdered in the line of duty since 2003, neither in immigration enforcement operations. David Wilhelm was murdered by an escaped US-born convict in 2005, and Jaime Zapata in a shootout in Mexico in 2011. Seven Border Patrol agents have been killed in the line of duty during that time, the last in early 2025 in a shootout with an AI doomer cult in Vermont.
The chance of an ICE or Border Patrol agent being murdered in the line of duty is about one in 94,549 per year, about 5.5 times less likely than a civilian being murdered. We should be much less concerned about their safety. Less than 10 percent of all Border Patrol agents and ICE officers who died in the line of duty were murdered.
A total of 92 ICE and Border Patrol agents have died in the line of duty since 2003 from various causes (Figure 1). COVID-19 was responsible for 37 percent of deaths, followed by car and vehicle accidents at 28 percent, and health problems like heat stroke or heart attacks at 19 percent. A COVID-19 vaccine mandate for ICE and Border Patrol agents would have saved more of their lives than any other change in policy. The annual chance of dying from any cause as an ICE or Border Patrol agent is about one in 9,250 per year.
The number of deaths in 2025 was even with 2013 and 2005, and only 2015 had fewer deaths (Figure 2). Ironically, 2015 was when Trump entered as a candidate, propelled by anti-immigration sentiment. Border Patrol and ICE agents are rarely the victims of deadly violence because illegal immigrants are much less likely to commit murder and other crimes than native-born Americans. Convictions and arrest data from Texas, incarceration data from Oklahoma, Georgia, and nationwide, victimization survey data, and recent ICE arrest data of illegal immigrants confirm this.
My more detailed past analysis of Border Patrol deaths in the line of duty revealed similar numbers. There are other measures of violence, but death is the most independently verifiable and so the most trustworthy, costly, and important. The trustworthiness of measuring death matters most because ICE, Border Patrol, and federal prosecutors lie about being assaulted, so nobody can verify how many times they’ve actually been attacked.
Every unjust death is a tragedy, but we can’t make wise decisions about public policy or how to allocate scarce resources without understanding the facts and shunting aside the rhetoric. Being a Border Patrol or ICE agent earns many insults, but words aren’t violence. Neither are they dangerous jobs.
