A fully relativistic distorted-wave method has been used to calculate a large number of cross sections for electron impact ionization from the 2s, 2p1/2, and 2p3/2 subshells of ions with Z − N ≥ 4 (that is, ions that are at least four times ionized), where Z is the nuclear charge and N is the initial number of bound electrons per ion. In the special case of hydrogenic ions (N = 1), Z = 4 is also treated. Furthermore, a wide range of ions were considered, limited only by the additional conditions Z ≤ 92 and N ≤ 12. The generalized Breit interaction between bound and free electrons was included when significant, but this was found to occur only for Z ≳ 42 and had a maximum effect of only 13%. The results have been expressed in a convenient way, and fits have been made that allow one to readily obtain cross sections and rate coefficients for all ions in the above ranges of Z and N.