Human Impact Project

A father detained by ICE while at work in Albuquerque, New Mexico on August 21st was the subject of a habeas corpus petition filed in federal court. On September 28, 2026, a U.S. District Court judge in New Mexico ruled that his continued detention without a bond hearing violated his due process rights and ordered immigration officials to release him within 48 hours. His daughter had started a fundraiser to cover potential bail, which the family's lawyer said could range from $5,000 to $10,000, plus legal fees. The family describes him as 'the pillar' of their household.

Gustavo was arrested by ICE on a Wednesday morning while on his way to work. His wife, Flor Cecilia, who is unable to work due to health issues, and their children Kenia and Gustavo Jr. are struggling financially as a result. The family is raising money to hire an attorney to secure his release from jail and fight his deportation case.

A Black man with no connection to an ongoing traffic stop was questioned and handcuffed by a US Border Patrol agent at an Orion gas station in Lake Worth Beach, Florida. Video shows the agent demanding his identification and telling him it was 'because you're an immigrant' before officers forced his arms behind his back and restrained him. He was released minutes later after a status check cleared him. A second man who appeared Latino was seized shortly afterward, and an older man filming the encounter was ordered to move away from the scene.

A Mexican mother of three said about eight ICE agents in five vehicles blocked her outside her Los Angeles home as she returned from dropping her children at school, with her young daughter still in the car. A neighbor began recording and told the agents to leave, which paused the arrest and allowed the mother to avoid being taken into custody. The woman, who said she had a scheduled appointment with federal immigration officials, said she now fears being deported.

More than 160 people were deported from the U.S. to Cap-Haïtien, Haiti, on a flight Thursday, the first such deportation since the Trump administration ended Temporary Protected Status for Haitians. The group included TPS holders who had lived and worked legally in the U.S. since 2010, as well as people of Haitian descent born in the Dominican Republic who are not recognized as citizens there. One deportee, Jean Diane Louis, told reporters he left Haiti at age 5, that his family lives in New York City, and that ICE detained him without questioning before sending him back. Upon arrival, Haitian immigration officials offered deportees a maximum of $65 along with food and water, and many said they had nowhere to go and no family remaining in Haiti.

Andrés, a Colombian immigrant living in College Point, Queens, was driving his wife and 6-year-old daughter home from getting food in late June when masked ICE agents in unmarked cars boxed in his vehicle and ordered him out. Agents used a vehicle registration lookup on his New Jersey plates to confirm his identity and immigration status before arresting him, even though he had no criminal history, a valid work permit, and an upcoming immigration court date. He spent about three weeks at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn before a federal judge ordered his release following a habeas corpus lawsuit. Since his release, his daughter has continued to break down in tears, and he now carries copies of his release papers in case he is stopped again.

Angel Acosta Ramirez, 43, a former mechanical engineer from Venezuela who later worked as an Uber driver in Branson, was pulled over by the Christian County Sheriff's Office for allegedly speeding near Highlandville in January 2026. Despite holding a valid work visa, he was arrested and jailed on an immigration hold, spending six weeks in the Greene County Jail before being deported. He had fled Venezuela in 2022 with his wife, Maria Fernanda Arrioja Romero, their infant son Santiago, and his parents, believing he had a right to remain in the U.S. Acosta Ramirez said the hardest part of his detention was being separated from his wife and not knowing what would happen to their young son. His wife was later held for months in the same Greene County Jail, which contracts with ICE to detain hundreds of immigrants daily. Acosta Ramirez said life since his deportation has been 'really hard,' with his family now struggling to earn enough money to survive.

Wendy Vanessa Triviño Carrillo, a Colombian woman from Cúcuta, has been detained for more than nine months at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, Louisiana. Her father, Luis Eduardo, says she has experienced health problems while in custody and has appealed to the Colombian government and its Foreign Ministry for consular assistance. "We are not asking them to bypass the law. We are asking someone to look at my daughter's case, that someone listen to us," he said. The family is seeking more information about her immigration case, detention conditions, and medical care, and says that if she must return to Colombia they want it handled through proper procedures.

Carlos Téllez-Sanchez, a 35-year-old Venezuelan man who fled to Dallas, Texas, worked at a car dealership and delivered for Uber Eats to support his family while awaiting the birth of his son. He held a 2021 Withholding of Removal order protecting him from deportation and had no criminal record beyond civil immigration violations, but ICE detained him in December 2025 during what he believed was a routine work permit renewal check-in. He said an ICE agent told him to 'shut up' when he tried to explain his protection order, and he was moved between detention facilities more than six times over nearly eight months, during which he said he witnessed constant verbal abuse by officials. On August 20, 2026, he was flown in handcuffs to Liberia with 19 other deportees, nearly 6,000 miles from his wife and newborn U.S. citizen son, whom he has only seen via video calls. His brother Juan Tellez described him as 'a good person and hard worker' who 'doesn't deserve what happened to him,' and Téllez-Sanchez, fearing for his safety in Venezuela, is weighing whether to seek asylum in Liberia or travel elsewhere.

Christopher Gil Ortíz, who had lived in the U.S. since childhood, was detained by ICE agents in June while on his way to work in Los Angeles and later deported to Mexico, leaving behind his wife and two young children. He was dropped in Tulum, had his belongings stolen in Cancún, and traveled to Mexico City, where he has family, settling in the Tabacalera neighborhood known as 'Little LA.' His sister sent him a TikTok video about New Comienzos, an organization founded by Israel Concha that helps deportees reintegrate, prompting him to seek its support amid what Concha describes as a growing wave of returnees. Since January 2025, the Trump administration has deported an estimated 145,500 Mexicans, according to data cited by The Guardian.

Jonatan López, a man from Guatemala, was eating chips and drinking a soda on the steps outside a residential building in New Rochelle, New York, when ICE agents approached and began questioning him. Witness Brenda Figueroa, who recorded part of the encounter, described the detention as violent and said one agent who arrived later acted with particular aggression. Another witness said agents arrived in three unmarked vehicles, took a bystander's phone during the incident, and did not present a warrant despite repeated requests to do so.

Chidozie Wilson Okeke, a Nigerian national who had overstayed his tourist visa since August 2023, was arrested by ICE agents in early May 2026 near Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn after agents mistook him for a Mauritanian man they had a warrant for, citing a 'similar build and likeness.' Agents ran the New Jersey plates on his car, trailed him for several blocks, then pulled him over; he was beaten and appeared to have been tased during the arrest, sustaining injuries that required treatment at the hospital's emergency room. DHS initially claimed Okeke had prior arrests for assault and drug possession, though ICE's own arrest record stated he had no known criminal history. His arrest drew 200-300 protesters to the hospital, leading to a five-hour standoff with NYPD during which nine people were arrested, ICE vehicles were damaged, pepper spray was used, and an ICE vehicle struck a protester. City Council Member Sandy Nurse and other officials later rallied against the incident, alleging coordination between ICE and NYPD in violation of sanctuary city laws.

A 1-year-old unaccompanied migrant child appeared in an Arizona immigration court and was ordered to file a 12-page asylum application before the next hearing or face deportation. Court filings allege that an attorney from USCRI, a new government contractor, was present but never spoke up on the child's behalf, calling it part of a broader "façade of compliance." This follows the July 31 end of a federal contract with the Acacia Center for Justice, which had funded legal representation for over 24,000 unaccompanied migrant children; payments to those nonprofits reportedly stopped in November after they declined to share confidential client information with the government. Some legal aid groups, including the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, say they are continuing to represent children without pay despite a court order requiring continued legal services.

Pedro Joaquin Aviles-Mena, a Nicaraguan citizen, was detained at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2022 and subsequently released on parole. After living and working in the United States for more than two years, he was re-detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at a scheduled check-in. He filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus and sought a temporary restraining order, arguing his re-detention violated procedural due process under the Fifth Amendment and that mandatory detention under the expedited removal statute no longer applied to him once he had been paroled into the country. A federal judge granted the temporary restraining order and later a preliminary injunction ordering his release, finding he had raised a serious question on the merits and enjoining the government from re-detaining him. On August 20, 2026, the court granted his habeas petition on the merits, ruling that he may not be re-detained without notice and a hearing before a neutral decisionmaker absent a material change in circumstances.

Four Cuban migrants, a Brazilian and a Cameroonian were deported from the US on August 20 on a flight that landed in Monrovia, Liberia, but the six refused to disembark. Lawyers say some were assaulted by ICE agents who forced them back onto the plane, and rather than being returned to the US as promised, they were flown onward to Equatorial Guinea, a country with which the US reportedly has a separate $7.5 million third-country deportation agreement. They are now held under armed guard in a former luxury hotel turned detention center in Malabo, without hygiene items, medical care, or the ability to contact their families. Several had previously been granted withholding of removal by US immigration judges due to risk of persecution or torture in their home countries. Lawyer Meredyth Yoon described it as the first known case of deportees refusing a third-country deportation and then being sent to a fourth country on the same flight, adding that their families are terrified for their safety. About 60 other people, mostly from African countries, have also been deported to Equatorial Guinea since November, part of a broader US program that has sent more than 23,000 people to 26 countries other than their own since last year.

Adams County Health Department confirmed a laboratory-confirmed case of active tuberculosis involving a detainee at the GEO Group-operated Aurora ICE Processing Center. Officials said GEO failed to provide medical records, patient access, and housing or movement information required to investigate possible exposure among detainees, staff, contractors, or visitors, prompting a Public Health Order on June 25, 2026 requiring compliance with Colorado tuberculosis investigation laws. ICE denied any active TB cases at the facility and denied violating any laws or guidelines. As a lawsuit between the state and GEO Group continued, Colorado health officials asked a judge in August 2026 to force the company to allow investigators to complete the tuberculosis probe.

Adriana Ruiz, 43, was detained by ICE agents in Santa Fe as she was getting into a car with her daughter-in-law, Yajaira Gutierrez, to take Gutierrez's 2-month-old baby, who was on an oxygen machine, to a medical appointment. Gutierrez said agents surrounded the vehicle, refused to show paperwork, and gave false information about the vehicle they were seeking, telling the family they would break the car's windows and take Ruiz regardless. Ruiz reportedly agreed to be arrested to protect her family. Gutierrez said Ruiz has health problems and that relatives have not been told where she was taken or whether she is receiving medical care, saying, "everyone has rights, but apparently in this country they don't."

Maria Alejandra Gomez-Quiroz, a 21-year-old pregnant woman from Colombia, was arrested by U.S. Border Patrol in June while fleeing guerrilla violence with her partner and planning to seek asylum. Convicted of illegal entry on July 6, she has been held for more than 40 days at the Dilley family detention facility in Texas and is now five months pregnant. Her sister, Kelly Ocampo, said the family paid more than $3,000 to someone posing as an immigration lawyer who sent a fraudulent letter on ICE letterhead falsely claiming Gomez-Quiroz's bond had been approved. Ocampo said her sister has become 'very depressed' and reported lower abdominal pain, while their mother is described as 'desperate.' DHS said Gomez-Quiroz remains in custody pending removal proceedings and disputed claims of inadequate medical care. She is one of at least 500 people detained at Dilley and one of four pregnant women held there, according to lawmakers, and a federal judge in California has ordered a special master and independent monitor to examine custody conditions and medical care at the facility.

Masuma Khan, a 64-year-old Bangladeshi immigrant who arrived in the U.S. in 1997 and has long worked at a local restaurant in Altadena, was detained by ICE on October 6, 2025 during a routine check-in appointment. Khan, who has no criminal history, had years earlier been the victim of a scam by a Bengali man who created a false identity for her, filed a fraudulent asylum application, and produced a fake passport, resulting in a 1999 removal order despite her working with multiple attorneys to resolve the issue. During a month in custody at the California City Detention Facility, Khan intermittently or never received medications for high blood pressure, hypothyroidism, prediabetes, and glaucoma, getting asthma medication only two days before release and never receiving eye drops; staff told her to buy medications from the commissary, which did not stock them. Since her release, Khan has suffered PTSD and ongoing health issues and has become fearful of leaving her home. Advocates allege ICE uses intimidation tactics on detainees nearing release, including driving them to airport tarmacs to pressure self-deportation. Supporters are urging California lawmakers, including Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, and Governor Gavin Newsom, to pass SB995, the Masuma Khan Justice Act.

ICE agents detained a Cambodian man Tuesday morning while he was working at Veranda Asian Market in Woodfords Corner, Portland, Maine. His name has not been publicly released, but Khmer Maine, a nonprofit in contact with him, described him as "quiet, kind and a hard worker." Marpheen Chann, executive director of Khmer Maine, said the arrest has sparked fear in local Asian immigrant communities and is "hurting Maine's local economy and making our communities feel less safe." Khmer Maine says it is working with his family and immigration advocates to ensure transparency. ICE has not released statistics on its recent operations in Maine, though national ICE detention numbers reached a record high of more than 65,000 last month.