Human Impact Project

Oscar Belgal, a 28-year-old Dominican national and father, was shot in the neck by a plainclothes ICE agent during an enforcement operation in the Marble Hill section of the Bronx/Upper Manhattan while his 5-year-old child sat in the car with him. Officials said agents approached with guns drawn, and at least one agent fired seven rounds after the vehicle moved; he was found handcuffed and bleeding on the ground. His child was unharmed, described as in shock, and was later placed with family members. DHS cited a prior grand larceny conviction, a pending drug-sale charge, and alleged gang 'associations' without providing evidence, while attorneys with Make the Road New York said Belgal remains in pain with a bullet still in his body. He was treated at New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital in stable condition before being taken by ICE to New Jersey and then transferred to a Brooklyn detention facility, despite efforts by Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul to secure his release. A federal judge has since barred the government from deporting him, and the shooting prompted protests outside the hospital and calls for body camera footage and an independent investigation.

A Border Patrol tactical unit confronted protesters blocking construction activity at the Arizona border wall. A protester described agents as wearing gas masks and wielding pepper spray, saying they were assaulting demonstrators rather than communicating with them. The confrontation highlights ongoing tensions between border communities and militarized enforcement at wall construction sites.

A resident of Kerman was detained by ICE agents on Thursday morning while stopping to buy a pastry and coffee, according to local officials who informed California Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria. Soria said she was "deeply disturbed" by the Trump administration's immigration enforcement operations and reports of racial profiling in the community, saying "no one should be targeted because of their color of their skin, the language they speak, their accent, or their last name."

An unnamed man was arrested by ICE agents in Mendota on Thursday morning without being asked any questions, according to Linda Martinez, an organizing coordinator with the United Farm Worker Foundation. He was released from ICE's downtown Fresno office later that afternoon after agents found his work permit in his wallet. The arrest occurred amid a broader ICE enforcement surge that advocates say has involved racial profiling of immigrant workers in the Fresno area this week.

An Angolan asylum seeker living in Maine was taken into ICE custody after negotiating a swap with immigration agents who had first detained his wife. The couple arranged the exchange so their 10-year-old son would not be left without a parent at home. Court records describe the arrangement as part of a broader pattern of federal agents tracking down immigrants with legal status at homes and workplaces in Maine, with lawyers noting Maine has stood out among New England states for this type of enforcement activity.

On October 19, 2025, more than 200 officers from roughly 14 federal and local agencies raided La Catedral Arena, a horse track in Wilder, Idaho, under a warrant covering only five gambling suspects. About 400 attendees, including children as young as 7, were zip-tied and detained for hours; 105 people were taken into ICE custody and five were arrested on gambling charges. Lead plaintiff Juana Rodriguez, a U.S. citizen, said she was restrained for nearly four hours while holding her 3-year-old son. Anabel Romero said her children, among more than a dozen American minors detained, remain deeply shaken, with her 7-year-old son later warning his older sister ahead of another race, 'Watch out for ICE, make sure you have your phone to film — I'll come save you.' A lawsuit alleges officers used racial epithets and denied food, water, and medical care; four protesters were also arrested, with most charges later dropped. U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ordered 15-16 detainees released, ruling mandatory detention violated due process, and awarded about $87,000 in attorneys' fees.

In January, hours after Renee Good's killing, immigration agents tackled and handcuffed a school staff member in Minneapolis. "I feel lucky to be alive," he recalled, describing the encounter as terrifying.

In November, immigration agents took an 18-year-old U.S. citizen off the street and eventually left him in the woods.

In April, a 20-year-old U.S. citizen was held in a Florida jail for more than 24 hours despite having proof of his citizenship.

During a Sept. 4 ICE raid in Dover, N.J., a Honduran man was picked up on his way to work, loaded into a van, and taken with nine other detained men to a warehouse in nearby Roxbury, where they were handcuffed and held in a parking lot for hours. Frightened, he signed deportation papers and said he regretted it the next morning; NPR later located him in Honduras, where he had been deported, and he requested anonymity out of fear for loved ones still in the U.S. During the same raid, a 59-year-old worker was cornered against a wall by two masked ICE agents in footage that later circulated on social media. His daughter recognized him in the video and received a disoriented call from him afterward saying he was handcuffed somewhere she believed was the Roxbury warehouse; she has not been able to reach him since and asked not to be named for fear of being targeted.

Orville Etoria, a Jamaican man transferred by the United States to Eswatini under its third-country deportation program, described in a deposition being held in extreme isolation during his first weeks at Matsapha Correctional Complex, a maximum-security prison. He said he was barred from communicating with anyone outside the prison for two and a half weeks, confined to his cell except to be fed, and treated 'as if we were violent, even though we had done nothing wrong,' until guards came to see the US government's portrayal of detainees as false.

Tesfay T., a 35-year-old Ethiopian man who had been imprisoned and tortured in Ethiopia and later kidnapped and tortured again in Mexico, fled to the United States and spent more than a year in immigration detention after crossing the border irregularly. An immigration judge denied his asylum claim but granted him 'withholding of removal' because of the likelihood he would be tortured again if returned to Ethiopia. In February 2026, while his lawyer was pursuing a habeas corpus petition for his release, an ICE officer told him to sign a voluntary departure form and said, 'I don't care, I'm going to sign it myself' when Tesfay refused and asked to speak with his attorney. He was then flown to Cameroon chained at his wrists, legs, and stomach for the entire journey, denied the ability to stand or use a bathroom without restraints, and was not told his destination until after landing.

Volkan Guzey, a longtime captain at Carbone Miami and native of Turkey, was detained by ICE agents at Miami International Airport on September 4 as he and his wife, Eliana Cabrera, prepared to board a flight for their honeymoon. The couple had married less than three months earlier and had planned a road trip through Cabrera's home state of Utah. Guzey had worked at Carbone Miami, part of Major Food Group, since January 2021, with prior restaurant experience at Fig & Olive, Del Posto, and The Grill. Cabrera says authorities transferred him from Florida to Texas and then to Colorado, where as of October 8 he was listed as held at the Denver Contract Detention Facility. She described him as the couple's primary income earner and started a GoFundMe to help cover legal fees, rent, and other expenses related to his detention.

At the GEO Group-run Folkston D. Ray James ICE Processing Center in Georgia, at least 73 detained immigrants launched a hunger strike protesting prolonged detention and facility conditions, including asylum seekers from Russia, China, Sudan, Afghanistan, Nepal and Yemen held from 16 months to nearly three years without being charged with a crime. The strike followed a video recorded by four detainees using the facility's video-calling software, including Russian asylum seeker Idris Makhmudov, who said he has been held for 27 months and described dysfunctional immigration courts and poor conditions. Attorney Samantha Hamilton said everyone who appeared in the video was placed in segregation as retaliation, and Makhmudov was reportedly held in solitary confinement. Separately, 45 detainees wrote an open letter detailing conditions, with detainees and advocates alleging substandard medical care, moldy or nearly inedible food, dirty water containing worms, and detainees developing diabetes and high blood pressure. Makhmudov said most detainees at the facility are asylum seekers fleeing persecution.

Luis Caiza, an asylum seeker from Ecuador with a work permit and no criminal record, was pulled from his car and thrown to the ground during a traffic stop in Maple Grove, Minnesota, part of ICE's Operation Metro Surge in the Twin Cities. His wife, Marjorie Flores, said officers kneed and kicked him while he was down, then pulled her from the car, threw her onto the icy street, and pointed a weapon at her as she pleaded that their three children, Camila, Sneyder, and Emilio, were at home. Caiza has since been held for nearly 10 months at the Torrance County Detention Facility in New Mexico, where he has described tooth infections, inadequate food, lack of clean clothing, and severe delays receiving legal mail. He said video calls with his children have become too painful to continue. His attorney, Danielle Molliver, disputes a judge's finding that he is a flight risk due to prior DWIs and has filed a second petition challenging his prolonged detention while his asylum appeal, which he recently lost, remains pending. Flores now works three jobs totaling 93 hours a week to support their children.

A Venezuelan man detained by an ICE agent on an Ogden street on Aug. 25 has been released after a federal judge in California ruled his detention unconstitutional, according to his attorney Sergio Garcia. The man, who came to the U.S. in 2022 and had applied for asylum and received a work permit, was held at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California before the judge granted his habeas petition. His arrest drew scrutiny after an Ogden police officer, who was responding to an unrelated call, became caught between the ICE agent and the man, and after a city councilman filmed part of the encounter. Garcia said the man still faces deportation and will now have to pursue his asylum case in immigration court rather than through USCIS.

A 17-year-old U.S. citizen was detained in Oregon during his lunch break after immigration agents broke his car window. Video reviewed by ProPublica captured the teenager telling an agent he was a U.S. citizen, to which the agent responded, "I don't care."

Daury Baez Seri, a DACA recipient who grew up in Boston after arriving from the Dominican Republic at age six, was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection for more than 24 hours at Logan International Airport. He was returning from a gaming convention in Puerto Rico when his flight was diverted to Bermuda due to a medical emergency onboard, inadvertently turning a domestic flight into an international one. His attorney, Todd Pomerleau, said Baez Seri was not allowed to call a lawyer while detained and has no criminal record. He was released from custody late Wednesday evening.

Oscar Bracamontes Trinidad, a Medford, Oregon father of five, was detained by ICE agents while at work and later deported to Mexico. His wife, Margarita Bracamontes Torres, said she wasn't notified of his arrest until hours later, by which point he was already being transported to Tacoma, Washington, and said ICE paperwork falsely stated he was picked up at an ICE facility rather than his workplace. Oscar was held in Tacoma for about 30 days before being transferred to a detention facility in Natchez, Mississippi, making visits impossible; the family ultimately decided not to fight his case in detention, which could have taken six months to a year, and he returned to Mexico. Margarita said their children struggled emotionally during his detention, and she is now raising money to relocate the family to Mexico while they pursue an I-130 petition to return to the U.S.

Luis Arreguin, 54, a Fresno man who has lived in the U.S. since he was five years old, was detained by ICE agents around 5 a.m. on Oct. 1 while driving to work on Manning Avenue, according to his daughter, Elaina Salazar. Salazar says agents acted without a warrant based on a tip, and told her father they knew he hadn't done anything wrong. She describes him as loving and hardworking, and says he was in the process of obtaining citizenship before his detention. Arreguin has high blood pressure that has been elevated for days and is being held at an ICE facility in McFarland, where Salazar visits him three times a week. His detention came amid a surge of roughly two dozen ICE arrests reported across Fresno and Madera counties that advocates have called an "election surge."