Human Impact Project

Emilio Nieves Matanzas, a Cuban national residing in Florida with an I-220A document, was arrested by ICE during a traffic stop on November 23, 2025, and deported to Cuba on May 21, 2026, while his asylum appeal and habeas corpus petition were pending in federal court. On June 14, 2026, the Department of Homeland Security granted him special parole to return legally to the United States, where he can seek permanent residency. His attorney argued the initial deportation violated constitutional protections for immigrants awaiting higher court decisions.

Etinosa Osahon, a 49-year-old Nigerian lawful permanent resident who came to the U.S. in 2002, was granted protection under the Convention Against Torture in 2012 after an immigration judge found Nigerian officials had tortured him, tying him to a tree, beating him, hanging him from a ceiling and forcing him to stare at the sun. He lived in California with his U.S. citizen wife and three U.S. citizen children and complied with ICE supervision for 14 years. In May, he was detained by ICE at what he believed was a routine check-in at the agency's Los Angeles field office and deported through Ghana toward Nigeria. After Ghanaian officials said he would be sent on to Nigeria, he fled into hiding in neighboring Togo, where his attorneys say he has contracted malaria and lacks legal status or medical care. A federal judge found the government likely acted in "flagrant violation" of his due-process rights and its own regulations by removing him without revoking his supervision or torture protections, and ordered officials to disclose his location and detail steps to bring him back.

Three undocumented immigrants—Ignacio Sosnava Rodriguez, Miguel Angel Gomez Alvarado, and Alejandro Villegas Angel—were detained by ICE after police stops in Taylor, Texas between November 2025 and February 2026. All three had lived in the U.S. for 14-22 years with no criminal records and were held without bond hearings. Federal judges ruled their detention violated due process rights and ordered their release. The Trump administration appealed, and their cases are now before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which will decide whether undocumented immigrants have constitutional rights to challenge their detention.

Alvaro Barrera Leon, a Cuban national, was detained by ICE on November 13, 2025, after appearing for a scheduled check-in appointment despite having complied with all supervision requirements and having no criminal history. The petitioner filed a habeas corpus petition challenging the legality of his detention under the Due Process Clause. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas granted the writ of habeas corpus, finding the petitioner's detention violated constitutional protections.

Dylan Lopez Contreras, a 21-year-old Venezuelan student at ELLIS Preparatory Academy in the Bronx, was detained by ICE in May 2024 after attending a mandatory immigration court hearing in Lower Manhattan. He was transferred to Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania, where an immigration judge denied his asylum claim in September 2024 and ordered his deportation to Venezuela. After nearly 10 months in detention, Contreras was released on March 18-19, 2025, while his legal team pursued an appeal of the deportation order. He returned to school while applying for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, subject to an ankle monitor and ICE check-ins as his asylum appeal remains pending. Dylan Lopez Contreras, a 20-year-old high school student at Ellis Preparatory Academy in the Bronx, was arrested by ICE agents in May 2025 at a Lower Manhattan courthouse after attending a mandatory immigration hearing. He was held in federal custody for nearly 10 months before being released on March 18, 2026, on his own recognizance with an ankle monitor. His detention was notable as the first widely documented case of a public school student in New York City being detained by federal agents under the Trump administration. A teenager named Ricardo was held in ICE detention and spent time in solitary confinement, prompting outrage from the Chicago community. His mother, Martha Liliana, and community members organized a rally calling for his release. Dylan, a 16-year-old high school student in the Bronx, was arrested by ICE when attending a routine court date at an immigration courthouse in New York City. The arrest occurred as part of ICE's campaign of arresting people at mandated immigration court hearings and fast-tracking deportations. Dylan, a 20-year-old student from Ellis Prep High School, was detained by ICE in May during an asylum hearing. He remains in ICE custody. This case is part of a pattern of ICE detention of NYC public school students attending legal hearings.

Roswell Enrique Pérez Nieto watched as immigration agents detained his wife and 3-year-old son at an immigration court in San Antonio, Texas. The encounter was captured in footage obtained by Newsweek, which documented masked officers taking the family into custody.

A Dominican man was detained by plainclothes ICE officers immediately after an immigration hearing at the immigration court inside the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in New York on June 6, 2025. This arrest occurred one day after a federal judge issued a ruling barring federal agents from routinely detaining people who appear for immigration court proceedings in New York City, finding that people should not have to risk arrest to exercise their legal right to pursue asylum claims or attend deportation hearings.

Oliver Mata Velazquez, a 19-year-old living in Buffalo, was arrested by ICE at an immigration courthouse, detained, and fast-tracked for deportation. The NYCLU filed a lawsuit challenging his arrest and secured his release.

Vivian Do's father was detained by ICE on March 5 at a GEO processing facility in Adelanto, California. Despite legal assurances and ICE's own notification that he would not be moved until June 5, he was transferred without notice on May 14, flown from Los Angeles to San Francisco, and deported to Vietnam the same day. The family had spent over $50,000 in legal fees seeking his release.

Obi, who arrived legally on a visa and was in the process of obtaining a green card, was detained by ICE on October 20th without due process. He was held in a detention facility for ten days after a judge ordered his release and bond was posted. His wife, who relies on him as her caregiver due to chronic illnesses, was forced to attend their green card interview alone while he remained detained. He was released with conditions including GPS monitoring and travel restrictions.

The United States District Court for the Western District of Texas granted provisional class certification and a preliminary injunction blocking four key provisions of Texas Senate Bill 4, a 2023 law the court found could allow states to pass their own immigration laws and undermine federal uniformity. The blocked provisions include a reentry crime applicable to anyone reentering Texas even with federal permission, magistrate power to issue deportation orders, criminalization of failing to comply with removal orders, and requirements that magistrates continue prosecutions despite pending federal immigration cases. The class-action lawsuit, filed by the ACLU of Texas and Texas Civil Rights Project on May 4, represents thousands of people across the state, including a lawful permanent resident and a person provisionally approved for a U Visa after assisting law enforcement.

Deisy Fidelina Rivera Ortega, wife of active-duty U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Jose Serrano stationed at Fort Bliss, was detained by ICE agents on April 14, 2026, while attending a USCIS appointment in El Paso, Texas to apply for Parole in Place. A native of El Salvador who had lived in the U.S. for approximately a decade, Rivera Ortega held valid work authorization and a 2019 court order granting her withholding of removal under the Convention Against Torture. Despite these legal protections, ICE arrested her based on a December 2019 removal order for illegal entry and indicated plans to deport her to Mexico under third-country removal procedures. After approximately one month in custody at the El Paso Service Processing Center, Rivera Ortega was released on May 15, 2026, following media reporting and personal intervention by U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat and combat veteran who contacted the Department of Homeland Security on her behalf. She remains subject to GPS monitoring, mandatory ICE check-ins, home visits, and travel restrictions while facing potential deportation.

The petitioner has been held in immigration detention since May 15, 2026, at the Golden State Annex Detention Facility. He was subject to discretionary detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a) after having previously been released on bond, conditional parole, or humanitarian parole. He filed a habeas corpus petition and a motion for a temporary restraining order, arguing that the government re-detained him without providing a constitutionally required pre-deprivation bond hearing before a neutral arbiter. The government conceded that the case was not distinguishable from the court's prior rulings finding such re-detention unconstitutional. The court agreed, finding the Due Process Clause required a pre-deprivation bond hearing before re-detention. The court granted the habeas petition and TRO, ordering his immediate release under the same conditions he had before detention, and required the government to give seven days' notice and hold a bond hearing before any future re-detention.

Roberto Orozco-Ramirez, an undocumented Mexican immigrant who had lived in Froid, Montana for 25 years and built a successful diesel repair business, was arrested by Border Patrol agents on January 25, 2026, after they staked out his home. He was charged with illegal reentry, but the government dropped that charge in April 2026, and he remained detained under the Trump administration's expanded mandatory detention policy for undocumented immigrants. Orozco-Ramirez is a father of four U.S. citizen children with no criminal record. The small, conservative town of Froid organized community fundraisers to support his family during his detention. On May 14-15, 2026, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Brian Morris ruled that his continued detention was unlawful, finding the administration's interpretation of mandatory detention law erroneous and in violation of due process and constitutional rights, and ordered his immediate release from the Cascade County Detention Center.

Victor Manuel Rocha, a former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia and State Department official who is a Colombian national, was convicted in 2024 of conspiring to act as an agent for Cuban intelligence for over 50 years beginning in 1973. He is currently serving a 15-year prison sentence. Rocha obtained U.S. citizenship in 1977-1978 after falsely representing under oath that he was not affiliated with the Communist Party and had not committed unreported crimes, concealing his ties to Cuba and his covert intelligence work. In May 2026, the Justice Department and USCIS moved to denaturalize him, filing a civil complaint alleging he fraudulently obtained naturalization by lying about his espionage activities and communist affiliations.

Debashis Ghosh, a 62-year-old Indian-American businessman who became a U.S. citizen in 2012, faces denaturalization proceedings initiated by the Department of Justice and USCIS. Ghosh falsely claimed on his naturalization application that he had no criminal history, concealing his involvement in a $2.5 million investor fraud scheme that ran from 2010 to 2014. He was convicted of wire fraud in 2017 for conspiring to defraud investors of funds intended for construction of an aircraft maintenance facility, misrepresenting how the money would be safeguarded. Authorities say he committed and concealed the fraud both before and after his naturalization. Ghosh is one of 12 individuals the Justice Department is targeting for denaturalization on charges including fraud, war crimes, and support for terrorist organizations.

The U.S. Department of Justice and USCIS filed a lawsuit to denaturalize Abduvosit Razikov, a 46-year-old Uzbekistani national, for allegedly obtaining his green card and citizenship through fraud. According to the complaint, Razikov paid a U.S. citizen approximately $5,000 for a sham marriage in 2005 to secure permanent residency, arranged a similar fraudulent marriage for his partner in 2007, and organized a third sham marriage after becoming a naturalized citizen in 2012. He also allegedly made false statements during his naturalization proceedings. The case is part of a broader Justice Department action targeting 12 individuals accused of concealing terrorist support, war crimes, or other serious offenses during their naturalization process.

A Salvadoran woman who was previously under an order of supervision and had been granted withholding of removal to El Salvador was re-detained by ICE on May 14, 2026 after her supervised release was revoked. The court found that ICE violated federal regulations by failing to provide adequate notice of revocation reasons and conducting the required informal interview on the same day as detention. The court ordered her immediate release, finding the revocation procedures unlawful.

A Cuban national ordered removed in 2019 was released on supervised release due to medical concerns after DHS detained him to execute his removal order. On May 12, 2026, DHS revoked his supervised release without demonstrating changed circumstances or that his removal was reasonably foreseeable. The court found the revocation unlawful and ordered his immediate release, finding that DHS failed to meet its burden under 8 C.F.R. § 241.13(i)(2) to show a significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future.

Jesus Hernandez, a single father of six children including two U.S. Marines, was detained by ICE on May 12, 2026, despite having spent seven years in immigration court proceedings to pursue legal citizenship. His family launched a fundraising campaign to secure legal representation, pay an immigration bond, and cover household expenses during his detention. The family believes he has a strong case to remain in the United States.