Human Impact Project

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.

Federal immigration agents conducted an operation on Chicago's Southeast Side near 105th Street and Avenue N, pursuing and deliberately ramming a vehicle that resulted in a crash. Two occupants were arrested on allegations of being in the U.S. without legal status, and when neighbors gathered to protest, agents deployed tear gas, pepper balls and smoke grenades, affecting residents, children and at least 13 Chicago police officers, with at least four protesters detained. In the following days, Southeast Side residents organized community defense efforts, including filming and reporting immigration activity, with local groups such as the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and Centro de Trabajadores Unidos holding a press conference to rally support for rapid-response and deportation-defense work. Residents described the incident as part of the broader federal immigration crackdown known as Operation Midway Blitz, which began in the city the previous month.

Thousands of protesters gathered outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Broadview on Friday to demonstrate against the Trump administration's deportation operations in the Chicago area. Democratic congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh was shoved to the ground by ICE agents in camouflage gear; she reported being thrown twice and lifted by her chest before being thrown onto asphalt. Federal agents deployed tear gas and pepper balls against crowds of demonstrators in two separate protests that began at 5 a.m. and 7 p.m. and lasted for hours, resulting in multiple arrests.

Federal ICE and Border Patrol agents used tear gas and pepper balls to disperse protesters outside a Chicago-area ICE detention facility during demonstrations against immigration enforcement operations. Protesters have included a pastor and two Democratic congressional candidates, with at least three arrests and clashes between agents and demonstrators. Video reviewed by NBC 5 Investigates shows a protester struck in the back of the head and face by a pepper ball during a September 26 demonstration, and another protester's back was covered in bruises from apparent pepper ball strikes. The incidents have raised questions about whether agents violated Border Patrol's own use-of-force policy, which restricts targeting the head, neck, spine or groin with compressed air launchers, as well as a judge's standing order limiting use of chemical agents.

NYC Comptroller Brad Lander was arrested during a civil disobedience protest inside 26 Federal Plaza in September 2025, where ICE maintains holding cells for recently detained immigrants. Lander and 10 state lawmakers were taken into custody while demanding access to detention cells to draw attention to conditions at the facility. Federal prosecutors offered to drop obstruction charges if Lander avoided arrest in federal buildings for six months, but he rejected the plea deal while the lawmakers accepted. Lander proceeded to a bench trial, stating he took the case to trial to insist that the rule of law apply to all people facing removal proceedings. He was found not guilty of obstructing elevators and the elevator lobby at 26 Federal Plaza.

Wesley Powers, a U.S. Navy veteran and U.S. citizen, was shot with chemical agent by ICE agents while protesting at Minnesota's Whipple Detention Center in January 2026. He was detained for 9 hours in an overcrowded cell, had his lawyer calls monitored, and was photographed by agents using personal phones before being released without charges. Powers reports subsequent incidents including vehicles at his home and lost work income.

Three women were found not guilty of conspiracy to dox an ICE agent on February 27 after a week-long trial revealed they did not know they were following the agent to his home and never disclosed his address during their livestreamed protest. Two of the women were convicted of stalking, a charge their attorney argues represents an unprecedented application of federal law, and they now face up to five years in federal prison. The agent testified that the incident prompted his family to move and his son to withdraw from high school, though Baldwin Park police said there were no repeat incidents, no injuries, and no weapons were found, and the agent acknowledged relatives still live at the same property.

The Department of Homeland Security has said that filming and posting videos of ICE agents constitutes "violence" and threatened to prosecute people who record agents during operations. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin called such recording "doxing," echoing Secretary Kristi Noem's earlier statement that videotaping or doxing agents qualifies as violence against them. Georgia-based journalist Mario Guevara, who has legal work authorization, has been held in ICE detention for more than two months after he was targeted for recording enforcement operations. When asked to substantiate claims of a sharp rise in violence against agents, DHS cited examples such as trash dumped on an agent's lawn and a sign bearing a profanity, and an ACLU attorney representing injured journalists and legal observers in Los Angeles disputed the department's violence statistics.

A California State University Channel Islands professor was charged with throwing a tear gas canister during an incident. In a separate immigration enforcement action in Southern California, a legal green card holder who was working toward U.S. citizenship was detained by ICE. The woman's husband expressed concern following her detention.

At the Broadview detention center in Illinois, a masked agent put a protester in a chokehold and had to be pulled off by another agent. The woman was sprayed in the face with a chemical irritant, shot with projectiles, and violently pushed and shoved to the ground before the chokehold.

Jessica Chodor was tackled and assaulted by a Memphis Safe Task Force officer while attempting to film a traffic stop. She was held down on the ground, threatened with a taser, and arrested on a charge of "resisting official detention," which was later dropped. She now avoids filming task force operations unless other observers are present. On May 13, Chodor and three other Memphis residents filed a federal lawsuit against the task force, alleging a pattern of retaliation and intimidation against people who record its operations, including improper use of Tennessee's 25-foot "Halo Law" to push back or arrest observers.

Hunter Demster, who runs a soup kitchen in Memphis, was arrested by officers with the Memphis Safe Task Force on August 26, 2026, while attempting to film task force activity, according to newly released video and a declaration filed in his ongoing ACLU lawsuit. The footage shows federal Homeland Security Investigations officers repeatedly moving toward Demster and ordering him to retreat, despite his insistence that he remained more than 25 feet away as required under Tennessee's "Halo Law." The ACLU says the arrest is further evidence of a continuing campaign of intimidation against Demster and eight other Memphis residents who allege in the lawsuit, filed in mid-May, that they have been violently arrested, surveilled at their homes, and wrongly pulled over for trying to document the task force, which has operated in Memphis since September 2025 under orders from President Trump and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee.

Daryn Herzberg, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, alleges he was assaulted by Department of Homeland Security personnel outside an ICE facility in South Portland on August 13, 2025. According to video evidence and his attorney's account, federal agents tackled him to the ground, with one officer grabbing him by the hair and slamming his face into the ground multiple times. Herzberg sustained injuries including a concussion, abrasions, bruising, chest contusions, and breathing issues. On August 27, Herzberg filed a federal lawsuit against DHS alleging battery and unconstitutional use of force. Federal authorities also charged Herzberg with obstructing the facility and throwing objects; his attorney characterizes these charges as bogus and retaliatory.

Alejandro Theodoro Orellana, 29, a member of the Boyle Heights-based community organization Centro CSO, pleaded not guilty to handing out protective face shields to protesters during an anti-ICE demonstration in Los Angeles. He faces federal charges of conspiracy and aiding and abetting civil disorder. Trial was set for August 26 in LA federal court.

Cottonwood School of Civics and Science relocated from its location next to a Portland ICE facility. The school experienced exposure to chemicals, munitions, and gases on its grounds during summer 2025, prompting cleanup efforts and enrollment decline. The K-8 charter school moved to a new location on Southwest First Avenue before the school year began on September 2.

An activist with immigrant advocacy group Resistencia en Acción followed federal immigration officers for about 19 minutes while honking her horn to alert residents during an ICE arrest of a community member in Trenton on August 20, 2025. Trenton police stopped and arrested her, alleging traffic violations including failing to stop at signs, illegal parking, and fleeing after officers activated lights and sirens; she was released after a few hours but received multiple traffic tickets, which she is disputing with a criminal defense attorney. The Trenton Police Department has denied coordinating with ICE, though CAIR-NJ says she was arrested at ICE's request, a claim that would conflict with New Jersey's Immigrant Trust Directive barring local police cooperation with ICE enforcement. CAIR-NJ and community advocates held a press conference on September 29, 2026, ahead of her court appearance in Trenton to support her.

Juliana Soares, an advocate with Greater Danbury United for Immigrants, was physically assaulted by ICE agents while protesting at Danbury Superior Courthouse on August 14, 2025. Soares stated that an ICE agent walked into her, shoved her into a group of armed agents, and another agent pushed her so forcefully she nearly fell. She was also screamed at loudly by another agent, causing her ear to ring. Soares was threatened with pepper spray and arrest during the incident.

Federal Protective Service officers arrested more than a dozen protesters outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles during Occupy ICE demonstrations that began in early July. Protesters maintained an encampment and said they were targeted for exercising First Amendment rights, while officials initially cited charges including assaulting officers and vandalism; the ACLU filed a lawsuit alleging excessive force and constitutional violations. Prosecutors later dropped assault charges against two protesters after defense attorneys said the officer named as the victim in both cases had failed to disclose prior criminal convictions. In one case, the officer's claim that he was punched in the face was contradicted by video of the incident.

ICE officers tackled and detained two protesters outside San Francisco's ICE field office on August 8, 2025, during an hourslong standoff; after officers fired pepperballs under a garage door, both protesters were released by 7 p.m. that evening. One of the protesters, Caleb Alexander Ranney, was later charged in December with two misdemeanors, assaulting a federal officer and destroying government property, related to the incident. His trial is scheduled to begin with jury selection, though the presiding judge is weighing a defense motion citing alleged government mishandling of evidence, following earlier rulings that agents unconstitutionally searched Ranney's backpack and that items taken from it were lost or destroyed.

Recently obtained 911 calls from Alligator Alcatraz, an undocumented migrant detention facility in the Florida Everglades, include approximately 70 calls. These calls included requests for emergency medical services for medical incidents with injuries and health concerns, with approximately 30 being accidental calls from staff. The facility has faced lawsuits over conditions. Reports indicate detainees staged a hunger strike to protest conditions, which DHS denied.