Human Impact Project

Maria Francisca Villanueva Caballero, 49, a longtime Firebaugh resident with no criminal record, was detained by ICE on October 8, 2025, while attending a scheduled USCIS appointment for her final interview to obtain permanent residency. She came to the U.S. in 2000 and settled in Firebaugh in 2001, where she worked at a packing plant, volunteered with the Catholic Church, and supported youth sports. She raised four children who became UCLA and UC Berkeley graduates pursuing careers in medicine, veterinary science, and law. On October 17, Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria and other state and local leaders held a press conference in Fresno in support of her release, where her son Omar read a letter from the siblings calling their mother "the pillar" of their family and asking ICE to use discretion to release her; a petition gathered 7,619 signatures. Caballero remains held at the California City detention facility, which opened in August 2025.

José Medina, a 35-year-old tamal vendor, was arrested by immigration authorities on October 8, 2025, while selling tamales at a 7-Eleven in San Pedro. After his detention, his family feared additional raids and stayed home with 720 unsold tamales. Community members, including artist Rubén Ochoa and his girlfriend, mobilized to sell the tamales through personal deliveries. Medina signed a deportation order and was in Tijuana by October 10, leaving his family behind.

Alejandro Suarez, 31, a gardener who has lived in the U.S. since age 11, was detained by ICE on October 7, 2025, following a routine USCIS appointment regarding his permanent residency at the Fresno office. Suarez had an approved I-130 petition and had kept his immigration paperwork current as advised by his attorney. He was escorted out through a back entrance and transferred to Golden State Annex detention center. Suarez's wife, Elida Herrera, 27, was recovering from a C-section and caring for their five children, including a newborn daughter and a son with autism. Suarez described harsh detention conditions including poor food and uncomfortable bedding. Between early October and mid-October 2025, ICE agents detained multiple immigrants attending USCIS permanent residency appointments at the Fresno office, many of whom were long-term residents married to U.S. citizens or military veterans with no criminal records.

A video circulating on social media shows DHS agents arresting a woman outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles on October 4, 2025. The woman was arrested after she allegedly blocked a federal facility entrance and refused to comply with officers' orders. The woman's clothing became disheveled during the arrest. A witness account suggested the woman had pulled over to ask for directions.

Saúl Zermeño, a 45-year-old with deferred action status who had lived in the U.S. for 36 years, was deported to Mexico on October 3 after attending a routine ICE check-in appointment. He had been the sole caregiver for his 15-year-old U.S. citizen son, Damian, a 10th grader with autism, ADHD, neurofibromatosis Type 1, epilepsy, and one kidney, since the boy's mother chose not to be involved in his life. Damian learned of his father's deportation from an aunt after returning home from school and said he initially didn't believe it, retreating to his room and losing his appetite. Since then, Damian, who doesn't drive and has limited cooking skills, has had to navigate daily life largely alone, experiencing depression, anxiety, academic decline, and withdrawal from activities.

Huabing Xie, a 47-year-old immigrant from China, died on September 29 after suffering a seizure while detained at the Imperial Regional Detention Facility in Calexico. Staff began CPR and used a defibrillator after observing the seizure at about 2:13 p.m., but Xie was pronounced dead at 3:15 p.m. at El Centro Regional Medical Center. ICE records show Xie was first arrested by Border Patrol near Tecate in December 2023 and released, then arrested again in September 2024 in Indio before being transferred to ICE custody. ICE said it notified the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General, its own Office of Professional Responsibility, and the Chinese consulate, and that a public report would be posted online. This marks the second ICE custody death in California in two weeks, and immigrants' rights groups have called for a full investigation.

Mario Guevara, an Emmy-award-winning Spanish-language journalist who lived in Atlanta for nearly 22 years with a valid work permit, was arrested on June 14, 2025, while live-streaming a 'No Kings' protest in DeKalb County, Georgia, and charged with obstruction, unlawful assembly, and improperly entering a roadway. Though a judge granted him bond, ICE placed a hold on him and he spent over 100 days in detention, including up to 22 hours daily in solitary confinement, separated from his wife and children. A federal judge questioned the legality of his detention, and the ACLU and his attorneys argued it violated his constitutional rights to free speech and due process, while the government claimed broad discretion to detain him and denied targeting him for his journalism, citing a decade-old removal order. The Bureau of Immigration Appeals ordered his removal on September 19, and he was deported to El Salvador on October 3, 2025, after which he continued working as a journalist, reporting from Central America and speaking at international press freedom conferences.

Five asylum seekers from Colombia, Guatemala, China, and Nicaragua were arrested by DHS agents immediately after exiting immigration court hearings at the San Francisco Immigration Court on October 2, 2025. All had pending asylum applications and were previously released under supervision with no criminal history. The federal court granted a temporary restraining order requiring their immediate release and prohibiting re-detention without a hearing.

Video captured in Oasis, California shows a federal agent kneeling on a man after throwing him to the ground and tasing him. According to the person who shared the footage, the man had already surrendered and was not resisting when the agent used force against him.

Oscar Polanco was detained at a biometrics appointment in October and deported to Guatemala, a country he had not lived in for 20 years. His wife Geraldine, a dentist from Peru who sought asylum after robberies at her practice, witnessed his arrest; Oscar had filed paperwork to be included in her asylum case. The couple, who met at a church in West Adams and married in 2023, were separated for nearly three months before reuniting in Peru. They now plan to relocate together and rebuild their lives in Guatemala.

Giovanni, a 48-year-old car wash worker in the San Fernando Valley, was detained in October 2025 along with three coworkers during a federal immigration raid. Unlike his coworkers who were deported to Mexico within 24 hours, Giovanni refused to sign voluntary departure documents and was held at Adelanto ICE Processing Center for six months rather than return to El Salvador. His detention left his wife Maria and school-age children without his primary income.

Alberto, a 59-year-old surgical technician who fled to the U.S. in 1990 by running across the border from Tijuana to San Ysidro while his wife and two young sons crossed hidden in a car, later served as a confidential informant for federal immigration agents in the 1990s, collecting names of undocumented farmworkers in exchange for a temporary work permit and a promise of future legal status. After 36 years in Fresno — working first as a hospital janitor, then as a surgical technician, and eventually buying a home — he was arrested in October 2025 during a scheduled green card interview at a USCIS field office when ICE agents entered the room. Released after four days following a successful habeas petition, he was re-arrested at a subsequent ICE check-in appointment in November and detained for nearly four months at Golden State Annex detention center near Bakersfield before being released on bond in February with an ankle monitor.

Josselyn, a California State University, Northridge "Bridge to the Future" scholar double majoring in Psychology and Sociology, was detained by ICE during an immigration hearing on September 30. Her brother was also taken into custody in the same incident. Josselyn has lived in the United States since 2015, graduated with honors from Canoga Park High School, and was named West Valley Boys and Girls Club Youth of the Year in 2025. She volunteers in her community at produce distributions, animal shelters, and cultural events, and supporters describe her as intelligent and compassionate. She is scheduled to be transferred out of state, and community members are raising funds for her legal defense and to support her mother, who is undergoing medical treatment.

Esteban Rios, a Mexican national who immigrated to the U.S. over 30 years ago, was detained by ICE agents on September 28, 2025, at Camp Pendleton while attempting to visit his pregnant daughter with his wife Luisa Rodriguez. Initially released with an ankle monitor, he was detained again when he checked in with ICE days later and was deported on Friday, October 10, 2025. The family has pending green card applications sponsored by his son, U.S. Marine Steve Rios, and says they have no criminal history.

Xiomara Suarez-Marin, a 29-year-old Peruvian national seeking asylum, was detained by ICE during a scheduled USCIS appointment in Los Angeles on September 26, despite having a pending green card application through her wife. She had entered the U.S. in 2022 under humanitarian parole and had complied with all previous ICE check-ins. She remains in federal custody at Adelanto Detention Center with an immigration court hearing scheduled for January 28.

Vicente (a pseudonym), a 60-year-old Cuban baseball coach who trained players who went on to the professional ranks, left Cuba for Venezuela in 2009, where he met his wife and raised his children. After receiving threats from Cuba's Interior Ministry investigators, who called him "a traitor" and warned his family would "pay the price," he crossed the Darién Gap and the Rio Grande in 2023, hoping to build a better future for his nine-year-old son. After months in detention at Port Isabel and the Geauga County Safety Center, he was released and reunited with his wife and son in Ontario, California, on Christmas Day 2023. He never missed an ICE check-in while working with a lawyer toward legal residency. Around August 2025, at what he believed was a routine check-in, an agent led him to a separate room where four officers handcuffed his hands, legs, and feet. "It was all a lie. A set-up," he said. He was held in an overcrowded Los Angeles basement holding room with more than 80 people, bused to Arizona and then to Camp East Montana in El Paso, and deported to Villahermosa, Mexico, in August 2025. He now lives in a 15-square-meter concrete-block house, volunteers coaching a youth baseball team, and has built an incubator to raise Japanese quail. "There's nothing I've done that justifies why I was separated from my family," he said. Last Christmas his family sent him a photo of the stockings on their fireplace in Ontario, including one embroidered with his name.

Harjit Kaur, a 73-year-old Sikh grandmother who had lived legally in the East Bay for over 30 years with no criminal record, was detained by ICE on September 8, 2025, after being asked to turn in paperwork at the San Francisco office during a routine check-in. Kaur had lived in Hercules, worked for two decades at Sari Palace in Berkeley, and regularly attended the El Sobrante Sikh Gurdwara; she has two grandsons and three granddaughters. Family members and roughly 200 community members held a protest at the El Sobrante Gurdwara demanding her release, with her daughter-in-law Manji Kaur calling the situation 'a total nightmare.' During her 15-day detention at facilities in Bakersfield and Georgia, Kaur reported being denied basic hygiene supplies, vegetarian meals consistent with her faith, and water for her medication, and was forced to sleep on cell floors. Despite her attorney's requests for release with monitoring or accompaniment on a commercial flight due to her age and medical conditions, Kaur was deported to India on September 22 without advance notice to her family and without being allowed to return home or say goodbye.

The Department of Homeland Security subpoenaed activist Sherman Austin and social media accounts associated with Stop ICE, a crowdsourced alert network documenting immigration enforcement activities, after they posted a video of a Border Patrol agent in February 2025. DHS alleged the post constituted doxing and violated officer safety protocols. Austin and civil liberties lawyers representing him argue the information was publicly available and that the post is protected speech under the First Amendment.

A San Diego family's parents were ordered removed to Mexico on September 22, 2025, after an eight-year legal battle that began with their detention in May 2017. The parents worked as a paletero and had lived in the community for nearly thirty years. Their adult children have organized a fundraiser to support their parents' transition to Mexico.

Mi nombre es Ernesto y estoy recaudando fondos para ayudar a mi papá, Julio Ernesto Chavez Linares, quien fue detenido por inmigración mientras trabajaba el dia 11 de septiembre en un car wash que se llama 100 % hand Wash en Los Angeles California . Él es salvadoreño, nació el 13 de enero de 1983, y siempre ha sido el pilar de nuestra familia, especialmente para mi hermana menor de 12 años. La ausencia de mi papá ha sido muy difícil para nosotros, ya que él se encargaba de la vida diaria de mi hermana, su educación y el bienestar del hogar.