Human Impact Project

Khadija (also referred to by the pseudonym Abina), a bisexual woman from Ghana, fled her country fearing for her life after she and her family were persecuted because of her sexual orientation. She crossed the U.S. border in December 2024 to seek asylum and was detained at the Eloy detention center in Arizona. Denied eligibility for asylum only because of the "circumvention of lawful pathways" regulation, she proved to an immigration judge that she was a refugee and was granted withholding of removal in July 2025. Instead of releasing her, ICE continued to detain her and told her she would be sent to Cameroon — a country she had never been to and where homosexuality is also criminalized. When she requested a fear interview and refused to sign voluntary deportation papers, an ICE officer told her to "get the fuck out of my face." In January 2026 she was placed on a flight in shackles around her wrists, ankles, and waist, with stopovers in Louisiana and Senegal, and deported to Cameroon. There she lives in a crowded room with about ten other women and other third-country nationals, lacking clothing, sanitary pads, and basic hygiene products, and was told she has temporary authorization to remain for only two months. As of July 2026, she remains in limbo, afraid to go outside the building where she is housed and unable to return to Ghana, where she fears persecution.

Mohan Karki, a 30-year-old refugee born in a Nepal refugee camp whose family fled persecution in Bhutan in the 1990s, faces deportation to Bhutan by the U.S. government despite having no passport or birth certificate from that country. He has been detained for over eight months pending removal proceedings stemming from a teenage burglary conviction. His attorneys have stated that deportation could result in statelessness, as Bhutanese authorities have previously denied entry to other deportees.

Four Cuban immigrants held at the Fort Bliss detention center in El Paso say they were among dozens driven to the U.S.-Mexico border and pressured by masked officials to cross or face imprisonment and beatings, with two reporting being beaten after initially refusing. The claims are part of a letter to ICE based on interviews with 45 detainees, alleging the agency violated federal rules on third-country deportations by not providing written notice or hearings. Internal ICE records reviewed by the Washington Post confirmed the men resisted removal but did not verify the abuse allegations; ICE declined a request to visit the facility. Advocates also cited broader complaints of inadequate food, hygiene and medical care at Fort Bliss, which a prior Post investigation found had violated 60 federal detention standards within its first 50 days of operation.

Juan Barilla, 35, a peasant farmer from San Miguelito in Nicaragua's Río San Juan department, spent 29 months imprisoned after being kidnapped by paramilitaries in 2020, and was among 222 political prisoners the Ortega-Murillo government expelled to the United States in February 2023, stripping him of his nationality. He resettled in Louisiana with humanitarian parole and a work permit, but was arrested by local police on April 5, 2025 for driving under the influence; even after a judge ordered his release following his 112-day sentence, he was held because of an ICE appointment, and ICE took him into custody in July 2025. Representing himself without a lawyer through several immigration court hearings on his pending asylum case, he said he was never allowed to present notarized evidence of his imprisonment and torture in Nicaragua. In October 2025, prosecutors sought protection for him under the Convention Against Torture with removal to Honduras rather than asylum, and he was deported there on November 29, 2025, describing being shackled at the hands, feet and waist 'like a criminal.' He is now under temporary UNHCR protection in Honduras and says he fears transnational retaliation from the Nicaraguan regime.

Carlos Téllez-Sanchez, a Venezuelan man who fled his home country in 2019 and had been living in Dallas working at a car dealership while awaiting the birth of his son, was arrested by ICE in December during a routine visit to renew his work permit despite holding a judge's order protecting him from deportation. He said an ICE agent told him to "shut up" when he tried to explain the court order, and he was subsequently held for eight months and moved between detention facilities more than six times before being deported to Liberia. Téllez-Sanchez said he witnessed constant verbal abuse by ICE officials in detention and now hopes to return to the U.S. to see the newborn son he has not yet held. A lawyer working with him said ICE frequently moves detainees between facilities to prevent them from mounting legal challenges.

Josue Rodriguez Perez, a Cuban immigrant who fled Cuba with his father in 1993 and held legal U.S. residency, was detained by ICE at a federal office in Miami in July while trying to renew his work permit. He spent 40 days in the Natrona County jail in Wyoming and was later deported in September to Mexico, a country where he has no ties. Rodriguez, a commercial truck driver with a valid U.S. work permit, is now sharing an apartment in Cancun with other deported Cubans, unable to be with his wife and family or see his brother, who is battling advanced cancer. He had lost his legal residency years earlier following a felony conviction tied to a car accident and subsequent addiction, but had since married, rebuilt his life, and worked as a truck driver.

José Barco, a 39-40-year-old decorated Iraq War veteran who received a Purple Heart after suffering traumatic brain injury in combat, was deported in November 2025 despite serving in the U.S. Army since age 4. After his release from prison in January 2025—following 15 years served for a 2008 shooting conviction—ICE detained him immediately. His 2006 citizenship application while stationed at Fort Carson was lost in the system. Venezuela initially ordered him deported there but refused to accept him at the Honduras border, citing documentation concerns. He was eventually deported to Mexico in November 2025, a country he had never visited, where he is now seeking asylum.

Britania Uriostegui Rios, a transgender woman, was deported by ICE from Louisiana to Mexico despite a March court order finding she would "more likely than not" face torture or death there. Her attorneys say ICE removed her "without any notice whatsoever," leaving her without medication, identification, money, or a phone, and that she was later found hiding at an unsupportive relative's home. Her lawyers have sued President Trump, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, and other officials, arguing the removal violated her due process rights and a protective order under the Convention Against Torture. Prior to her deportation, ICE had transferred her without notifying her attorneys to an all-men's prison in Louisiana, and had also sought to remove her to El Salvador.

Ousmane (a pseudonym), a West African man who had lived in the United States for more than 20 years, was among 19 people put on deportation flight N225AX from Alexandria International Airport in Louisiana to Ghana on November 6, 2025 — a country none of them had ties to. When he said he would not go, "I started getting beat up, having my face covered up, in front of all the other detainees, just to scare them," he said. He was reportedly placed in a full-body restraint device known as the WRAP. After landing in Accra, the deportees were held at a hotel, then taken by soldiers to the remote Bundase military camp and later to a detention facility at the airport, where they were pressured daily to contact their embassies for travel documents. Nearly a year later, the people on the flight told reporters they remain in limbo.

A Cuban man who fled Cuba with his politically active family as a teenager lived in the U.S. for over two decades, raised six U.S.-citizen children and owned a business before being detained after attempting to cross into Canada out of fear of third-country deportation. He was held at the Plymouth, Massachusetts ICE detention facility, where his attorney, Sarah Sherman-Stokes of Boston University's Immigrants' Rights and Human Trafficking Clinic, said she was not notified of his fear-of-return interview regarding removal to Mexico, which she believes violated his rights. He was deported to Mexico in November 2025, and his continuing legal challenge led U.S. District Judge William G. Young to reveal in a March 2026 order that the Department of Homeland Security has deported about 6,000 Cuban nationals to Mexico over the past year under an unwritten, standing agreement between the two countries. Young questioned the legality of the arrangement, noting it lacked any formal process beyond the government's own assertion that it was permissible.

L.H., an Indigenous Quechua woman, fled Peru in 2021 with her minor son Y.V. after years of severe gender- and race-based domestic violence, including kidnapping, stalking, and a knife assault by her ex-partner. After settling in California and applying for asylum, DHS moved at a November 2025 hearing to pretermit her applications and seek their removal to Honduras under an Asylum Cooperative Agreement.

A Cuban national who presented himself at Miami International Airport in December 2022 seeking asylum was placed into immigration custody on October 16, 2025, after completing a criminal sentence in Pennsylvania. He had been charged and convicted of crimes in Florida, Texas, and Pennsylvania, receiving a 163-day to one-year sentence. An immigration judge ordered his removal to Ecuador on December 23, 2025, and the removal order became final on January 23, 2026. The court denied his habeas petition and temporary restraining order, finding his post-removal detention of less than six months presumptively reasonable.

Despite having Convention Against Torture protection barring removal to El Salvador, C.O. was detained by ICE in May 2025 and pressured to accept removal to Mexico. After refusing, ICE transported him to the border and handed him to Mexican authorities, who drove him to Guatemala, which transferred him to El Salvador — all while shackled. Salvadoran authorities threatened to send him to CECOT. His family has had no contact since October 9, 2025.

P.R., a 42-year-old Cambodian national, was born in a refugee camp in Thailand after his family fled the Cambodian genocide. He entered the United States in 1985 at age three and lived there for 40 years. In 2010 he was ordered removed to Thailand, a country where he is neither citizen nor national. After completing his sentence in January 2025, he was held by ICE nine additional months before being deported to Eswatini on October 6, 2025.

K.V.V., a 49-year-old Vietnamese national, came to the United States as a refugee at age eight in 1984. After a criminal conviction he was ordered removed in 2007 and remained on supervised release for 18 years. ICE arrested him in March 2025 and deported him to Eswatini on October 6, 2025, without attempting deportation to Vietnam. His physical and mental health have deteriorated significantly in detention, with his family reporting weight loss and emotional distress.

Jean, a 33-year-old Haitian, was deported from the United States to Mexico in late October 2025. He was transferred by bus to Villahermosa, then relocated to Cancún, where he was left without official assistance or resources. He submitted an asylum application to COMAR in mid-November but has not received confirmation of receipt. Jean cannot work because he is undocumented, cannot leave Quintana Roo state where he filed his application, and cannot access banking services or receive money from relatives.

West Africans deported from the United States to Ghana under a deportation agreement were subsequently transferred to Togo without proper documentation or identification papers. Between six and ten individuals, including nationals from Nigeria, Liberia, Gambia, and Togo, arrived in Ghana via U.S. military plane in shackles after being detained in U.S. facilities. Despite some having legal protections against deportation, they were transferred across the border to Togo and left on the street. Their lawyers pursued legal cases arguing rights violations, though some legal challenges against Ghana's government were withdrawn.

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.

The government of Ghana announced that 14 West Africans (13 Nigerians and 1 Gambian) deported from the US had been sent on to their home countries, prompting a lawsuit from US lawyers alleging the deportations violated immigration protections and that Ghana was used as a third country to bypass US law. Reuters later found that more than 30 third-country nationals were deported to Ghana, including at least 22 who had court-ordered protection against removal to their home countries, with lawyers saying none had a chance to raise legal objections before being sent back. One deportee, Rabbiatu Kuyateh, who had been granted protection from deportation to Sierra Leone over fears of torture tied to her father's political ties, was filmed being forcibly dragged onto a van in Ghana before being returned to Sierra Leone. Reuters also reported that Equatorial Guinea sent home at least three US deportees who had similar US protections, a previously unreported practice now the subject of complaints to the UN human rights office.

Jesus Munoz-Gutierrez, a Mexican migrant who had been ordered deported to Mexico by an immigration judge in 2005, was instead placed on a deportation flight to South Sudan in July 2025 as part of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. Immigration officials said he had recently been identified as a member of a criminal organization. He was one of eight men deported to South Sudan on July 5 after a legal battle, and a federal judge ruled the flight violated a court order requiring migrants be given a meaningful opportunity to object to their removal. Mexico later accepted his return after receiving assurances he would not face torture or inhumane treatment, and he was repatriated to Mexico.