No Qualified Immunity for ICE Agents

The Doctrine That Shields Abuse

When Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents violate constitutional rights, they must face consequences just like any other person. Yet qualified immunity—a judicially created doctrine that shields government officials from civil liability—protects ICE agents from being held accountable for abuses of power, civil rights violations, and even deadly force.¹ This legal protection for bad actors creates a system where agents can violate the law with impunity, knowing they face no personal consequences for their actions. Victims of abuse find themselves unable to seek justice through civil lawsuits, as courts dismiss cases before reaching the merits based on qualified immunity defenses.

This protection must end. We must pass legislation to strip ICE agents of qualified immunity and ensure that anyone who violates the law faces justice, regardless of the badge they wear.

H.R. 4944: The Ending Qualified Immunity for ICE Agents Act

Congressman Shri Thanedar of Michigan introduced H.R. 4944, the Ending Qualified Immunity for ICE Agents Act, in August 2025 to strip federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents of their qualified immunity protections, allowing individuals to sue agents who violate constitutional rights.¹ Co-sponsored by Representative Jan Schakowsky, the legislation was referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary for consideration.¹

The bill would bar ICE agents from invoking qualified immunity in lawsuits alleging constitutional violations.¹ Under current law, agents can defend themselves by claiming they acted in good faith or believed their conduct was lawful, even when they clearly violated someone’s rights. The Ending Qualified Immunity for ICE Agents Act would prevent agents from using these defenses.¹ It would eliminate the “clearly established law” doctrine that has shielded agents from accountability by requiring plaintiffs to find virtually identical precedent before courts will consider their claims.¹ Most importantly, the legislation would apply the same legal standards to ICE agents that apply to civilians who break the law.¹

As Representative Thanedar stated, “If an ICE agent violates the law, it only makes sense they are held accountable just like civilians.”¹ This principle embodies basic fairness: government agents who wield extraordinary power over people’s lives must face consequences when they abuse that power. No one should be above the law.

This legislation carries special urgency now that the recently enacted “One Big Beautiful Bill” allocates more than one hundred seventy billion dollars to ICE, including forty-five billion dollars in immediately available new resources.¹ With ICE’s expanding budget, growing enforcement powers, and surge in aggressive tactics under the current administration, strict oversight and meaningful accountability mechanisms become more critical than ever. Increased resources without increased accountability creates conditions ripe for abuse.

The Crisis of Death and Abuse in ICE Custody

The year 2025 has become the deadliest for people held in ICE custody in two decades, with at least twenty deaths recorded—more than any year since 2004.² In the first half of 2025 alone, ten people died in ICE custody, the highest total for that period since 2018.³ By June 2025, twelve people had already died while detained by ICE since October 2024, matching the previous year’s entire total in just eight months.³ For comparison, in 2024, when ICE held an average of approximately thirty-five thousand people, thirteen deaths were recorded.²

These rising fatalities stem from multiple interconnected failures. Acute overcrowding strains facility capacity beyond breaking points.³ Detention conditions remain abysmal, with inadequate sanitation, nutrition, and basic safety measures.³ Medical neglect kills people whose treatable conditions go undiagnosed or untreated.³ Mental distress soars in detention environments designed to punish rather than humanely house human beings.³ The Trump administration increased the number of people detained in ICE facilities by almost fifty percent in less than one year, exacerbating all of these problems.²

Medical conditions surrounding recent deaths have included tuberculosis, strokes, respiratory failure, and approximately three possible suicides.² A comprehensive report found that ninety-five percent of deaths in ICE detention could likely have been prevented with adequate medical care.⁴ This statistic reveals systemic medical neglect, not isolated incidents or unavoidable tragedies. People are dying because ICE fails to provide the basic healthcare that could save their lives.

ICE operates the largest immigration detention system in the world, incarcerating over thirty-seven thousand individuals as of July 2024.⁵ Abuse has been repeatedly documented since the early 2000s in forms that include medical neglect, sexual abuse, unsanitary conditions, retaliation against detainees who file complaints, and prolonged use of solitary confinement—particularly targeting mentally ill and medically vulnerable immigrants.⁵⁶ Previously confidential reports confirm patterns of poor medical care, mistreatment of transgender individuals, shortcomings in sexual assault prevention and response programs, and services remaining inaccessible to those who need them.⁵ Detainees at facilities like Pine Prairie in Louisiana have described their experiences as “tantamount to torture.”⁶

In April 2024, the Government Accountability Project submitted testimony to Congress supporting a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing titled “Legacy of Harm: Eliminating the Abuse of Solitary Confinement.”⁶ This hearing came more than ten years after initial complaints about the inhumane use of solitary confinement for mentally ill and medically vulnerable immigrants in ICE custody.⁶ A decade of documented abuse with minimal accountability demonstrates the urgent need for legislative reform.

Deadly Force by Border Enforcement Agents

Between 2010 and 2024, three hundred thirty-four people were killed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents, ICE’s sister agency within the Department of Homeland Security.⁷ Geographic distribution of these killings shows one hundred seventy-six deaths in Texas, sixty-seven in Arizona, forty-six in California, and forty-five in New Mexico.⁷ These numbers document a pattern of lethal force concentrated along the southern border, where enforcement agents operate with minimal oversight and broad discretion to use weapons.

Alarmingly, children under eighteen years old comprise eight percent of all victims killed by CBP agents, while approximately fourteen percent of victims fell between ages eighteen and twenty-nine.⁷ The youngest and most vulnerable populations face deadly violence from agents sworn to enforce immigration law. Victims included one hundred ten Mexican nationals, fifty-two U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents, thirty-one Guatemalans, and fifteen Hondurans.⁷ That U.S. citizens and legal residents account for more than fifty deaths underscores how enforcement violence affects not only undocumented immigrants but anyone who encounters armed border agents.

Reports document that ICE has detained American citizens with impunity and committed civil rights violations, with qualified immunity protecting agents from accountability.⁷ While the Supreme Court has recognized that federal officers are not immune from prosecution if they break state or federal law,⁸ qualified immunity makes it extremely difficult in practice to hold agents accountable even when they clearly violate constitutional rights. Courts dismiss lawsuits before examining the facts of the case, accepting agents’ qualified immunity defenses and leaving victims without recourse.

Systemic Oversight Failures

ICE’s oversight system has comprehensively failed to prevent persistent abuse and inhumane conditions.⁵ The Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties within the Department of Homeland Security carries formal responsibility for oversight but often fails to hold ICE accountable in any meaningful way.⁵ Institutional secrecy has limited CRCL’s impact and allowed systemic problems to fester unaddressed.⁵ Many confirmed issues only become public through litigation, often roughly a decade after initial allegations were made.⁵ This pattern of delayed disclosure and minimal consequences creates a system where abuse continues because agents and facilities face no real threat of punishment.

ICE’s failure to engage in meaningful self-oversight forms part of a larger detention and enforcement apparatus designed to cover up abuse and stifle accountability.⁵ The agency resists transparency, fights document requests, and creates bureaucratic obstacles preventing effective external scrutiny. When oversight offices within DHS do investigate and confirm abuses, their findings gather dust rather than prompting systemic reform or individual discipline. Congressional oversight hearings produce dramatic testimony but rarely translate into binding requirements or budget consequences that might force behavioral change.

What We Must Demand

We must pass H.R. 4944 to end qualified immunity for ICE agents, establishing that government officials who violate constitutional rights face civil liability just like any other person.¹ We must establish independent oversight of ICE detention facilities with transparent public reporting, removing oversight from DHS agencies that have proven unwilling or unable to hold ICE accountable. We must ensure criminal prosecution for agents who violate civil rights or use excessive force, recognizing that civil liability alone cannot address criminal conduct. We must demand accountability for the systemic failures that allow abuse to persist across administrations and political parties. We must secure justice for victims and their families, who have suffered abuse while the legal system denied them remedies.

No government agent should be above the law. ICE agents who violate constitutional rights must face the same consequences as any civilian who breaks the law. The doctrine of qualified immunity creates a two-tiered justice system where badge-wearing agents escape accountability for abuses that would send civilians to prison. Ending this unjust double standard represents a basic requirement of democratic governance and the rule of law. When agents know they face personal consequences for misconduct, they think twice before violating rights. When victims can seek justice through courts, abuse becomes visible and systemic patterns emerge. Qualified immunity prevents both deterrence and exposure, allowing abuse to flourish in darkness.

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