Approximately 18,611 people are killed by another individual annually in the USA, according to our ad hoc research in March 2026. If we want to understand relative danger, we can standardize the overall rate as 100% and compare to the other rates to show the probability of victimization, defined as wrongful death by violence or neglect in custody divided by the number of actors.
The roughly 13 million undocumented aliens in the US kill an estimated 300 people per year or 1.7% of all killings (we use "killing" in lieu of "murder" as the latter is a legal term and not all killings are prosecuted). This is a rate only 42.9%, about 2/5, of the overall rate. (Note: The number is extrapolated from only a small number of studies.) If correct, then this means that if the next person you meet is an undocumented alien, your odds of being killed are about 3/5 less than by a random stranger.
Spouses among 68,000,000 couples commit 12.2% of all killings, about 1/8, a rate of 140.2% of the standardized rate. This suggests that you are more likely to be killed by your spouse than by an undocumented alien.
It would appear at first glance that your friendly neighborhood ICE agent is much les likely to kill you as that random stranger. Their rate is just 40 in 335 million. So far, ICE agents look like the safe bet.
However, you might consider the odds of your next meeting with an undocumented alien, your spouse, an ICE agent, or a random stranger, based on their lethal proclivities.
Random strangers kill at a rate of (18000/335MM*100=)0.00537%; undocumented aliens at (300/13MM*100=) 0.00231% (lowest); spouses at 2200/68MM*100=0.00324% (low); and ICE agents 40/20000*100=0.2% (highest). Oh, my!
So of all the people you might meet today, e.g., at a US airport, based on average lethality the one most likely to kill you is an ICE agent, by a factor of about 37 times compared to a random stranger.
For perspective, about 3 million fought in the US Civil war, and 650,000 died. In all US wars from 1776, about 48 million have fought and about 1.3 million have died. Thus the rate of killing over 250 years was 1.3/48*100=2.708%. If we accept one recent estimate of all the Americans who have ever lived since 1776 the rate becomes somewhere between 1.3/700*100=0.186% or 1.3/900*100=0.144%. Of those we've examined here, only the ICE rate approaches that figure. This places ICE firmly in the club that includes George III, the slaveholding Confederacy, Jim Crow, the Klan and every dictator we ever opposed.
Is this a reasonable argument? Ask yourself that question the next time you meet a masked, bulletproof ICE agent.
Revised for clarity 3/24/26.
