Human Impact Project

Maria, 39, who came to El Paso from Ciudad Juárez on a visitor visa fleeing violence targeting her husband, a Mexican doctor now a naturalized U.S. citizen, was detained on Sept. 9, 2025, immediately after an immigration judge ordered her deportation at a hearing. About seven plainclothes, masked agents handcuffed her outside the courtroom and took her to the El Paso Processing Service Center, where she remained detained through Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. She was released Jan. 20, 2026, with an ankle monitor, and said she and her four U.S.-born children underwent family therapy after the ordeal.

Juan Lopez, a landscaper who had lived and worked in Des Moines for nearly four decades, was pulled over by five unmarked ICE vehicles while driving to work at Iowa Irrigation in Huxley. Agents smashed his truck's windows and removed him from the vehicle while he was on the phone with his partner, Laura Becerra, the mother of his seven children. Lopez is being held at the Polk County Jail under an ICE detainer, one of six Iowa county jails that holds ICE detainees. His daughter, Tiffany Lopez, said the family was "furious" over how he was detained, and advocacy group Escucha Mi Voz Iowa is demanding his release.

Jose Pescador Garcia, a Mexico native who has lived in the U.S. over 25 years, was detained by ICE in September 2025 and later ordered removed by an immigration judge, a ruling he is appealing to the Board of Immigration Appeals. He is married to a U.S. citizen whose family petition on his behalf was approved, and he is the father and stepfather of seven U.S.-citizen children; his wife is eight months pregnant with a high-risk pregnancy involving detected chromosomal abnormalities. A federal judge in the Southern District of Texas granted his petition for a writ of habeas corpus in January 2026, finding no lawful basis for his continued detention.

Federal ICE agents apprehended two people in Maplewood using unmarked cars. According to local officials and advocacy groups, three masked ICE and Border Patrol agents loaded the two arrestees into unmarked, out-of-state vehicles on Prospect Street around 11 a.m. The local police department was not notified of the incident, and the township does not cooperate with ICE.

Óscar Rascón Duarte, a 58-year-old Mexican national, died on September 8, 2025, at Banner Desert Medical Center in Mesa, Arizona, while in ICE custody. He had advanced-stage Alzheimer's disease, right kidney cancer, and hepatitis C. Rascón Duarte first entered the United States in September 1976 near Douglas, Arizona, and in 2004, while in Arizona Department of Corrections custody, ICE initiated deportation proceedings against him and transferred him to the Eloy Detention Center. On January 15, 2025, ICE arranged long-term medical care for him at a facility in Mesa, where he remained hospitalized until his death. ICE said the cause of death was under investigation and that the Mexican Embassy was notified. His death was one of 17 Mexican immigrant deaths in ICE custody or during immigration enforcement operations during the Trump administration's crackdown, prompting Mexico's government to file complaints and demand investigations.

A woman who had been living legally in the United States for 47 years was detained by ICE over 22 bad checks.

Margarita Avila, a 50-year-old Houston mother, has been held in immigrant detention since March 2025 as the Trump administration seeks to deport her to Belize, a country she fled two decades ago due to threats against her family. She requested asylum more than a decade ago, and her case has remained pending since then. Her husband, José Avila, and their young sons, including 12-year-old Isaac and 10-year-old Jeremiah, have struggled with her absence, including during a Mother's Day church service where the boys had no mother to greet. José said, "It's really hard to see everything my wife is going through. It hurts not being able to be with my wife — and seeing my kids sad — because their mother is always around." Margarita is among tens of thousands of immigrants targeted for deportation under the Trump administration's stated goal of deporting 1 million immigrants annually.

Leodegario Martínez Barradas, a flower vendor, was arrested by federal immigration agents in Chicago's Archer Heights neighborhood on September 7, 2025, during the launch of Trump's "Operation Midway Blitz" immigration enforcement operation. He was deported to Mexico within days. The Trump administration claims the operation targets criminal immigrants. Barradas had no known violent criminal record.

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.

Hilda Gloria Yanez-Zavala, who came to the U.S. from El Salvador three years ago and was granted asylum, was detained during an immigration raid at a factory in Cato where she worked legally. She was separated from her two sons and held in detention for a month before deciding to self-deport. Her two sons remained in America.

Federal ICE agents raided Nutrition Bar Confectioners, a family-owned nutrition bar manufacturer in Cato, New York, on September 4, 2025, detaining 57 workers. The raid separated nursing mothers from infants under one year old and affected elementary school-aged children whose parents were detained. Five of the 57 detainees were criminally charged with unauthorized re-entry after prior deportation, while the remaining 52 faced deportation proceedings. Governor Kathy Hochul visited the facility and expressed concern that detaining parents put at least a dozen children at risk of returning from school to an empty house.

Three individuals—an immigrant detained by ICE in the Northern District of California, a second immigrant detained by ICE in the same district, and a third immigrant detained by ICE in the same district—were detained by ICE in the Northern District of California. The court granted a preliminary injunction on November 5, 2025, prohibiting respondents from detaining the petitioners without a pre-detention hearing before a neutral decisionmaker and preventing their transfer out of the district without court approval. The court found the petitioners raised serious legal questions regarding the legality of their detention under the circumstances presented.

Darian Maldonado Medina, a Venezuelan with Temporary Protected Status, was detained by ICE during a routine check-in in Tampa on September 5, 2025, and deported to Venezuela three weeks later. He had valid TPS status at the time of detention, a pending family petition through his U.S. citizen mother, and a 15-month-old U.S. citizen son and partner remaining in Florida. A federal court order had extended TPS protections prior to his deportation. Lawyers have argued that the deportation violated federal law and court orders.

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.

New Jersey's attorney general is reviewing reports that ICE is conducting operations at a Roxbury warehouse in violation of a federal court order barring its conversion into a detention facility. A May court ruling required ICE to halt conversion plans and limit activity at the site to maintenance, but a July 10 DHS filing indicated the agency intends to move forward with retrofitting the warehouse for detention use. The community group Sussex Visibility Brigade has reported increased ICE activity at the site, and the AG's office says it will take steps to address any non-compliance. The warehouse, purchased by DHS for nearly $130 million to become a 1,500-person detention center, has drawn bipartisan opposition, including a lawsuit from the state and Roxbury township.

More than 300 South Korean workers among 475 people detained in a September 4, 2025 immigration raid at the Hyundai-LG battery plant in Ellabell, Georgia have begun filing administrative claims against nine federal agencies, the first step toward a federal lawsuit. The claims note that the search warrant used to enter the plant named only four targets, who court records describe as Hispanic, not Korean. Workers, including a lead organizer identified only as Kim, allege they were shackled, denied interpreters, pressured to sign documents they could not read, and held for about a week in overcrowded, cold cells with limited food and sanitation at a detention facility in Folkston, Georgia. One worker, Ryu, said he lost nearly 10 pounds in custody, while another, Choi, said he has since returned to work at the same plant but wants a government apology; Hyundai and LG have publicly distanced themselves from the litigation.

Pedro Rojas, a U.S. citizen born in Puerto Rico, was working at the Nutrition Bar Confectioners factory in Cato, New York, when armed federal agents raided the site on Sept. 4, 2025. After identifying himself as a citizen, he was still required to show identification and provide contact information before being allowed to leave. Newly released body camera footage, cited in a lawsuit filed Sept. 10, 2026 alleging investigators overstepped their search warrants, shows the hours-long raid in which 57 people were arrested and employees were separated into groups based on citizenship status. Rojas remains a plaintiff in the suit, which alleges the raid targeted Latino workers based on ethnicity.

On September 4, 2025, roughly 60 armed and masked federal agents from Homeland Security Investigations, ICE, CBP and local sheriff's offices raided the Nutrition Bar Confectioners plant in Cato, New York, a town of 2,500 people east of Syracuse. Officers broke down a locked bathroom door on female employees, herded over 100 workers into a break room, and separated them by citizenship status without individualized suspicion, questioning pregnant employees and parents worried about children waiting at home. Investigators also interviewed the plant's general manager about hiring practices and potential fraudulent documents, while officers searched offices, storage rooms and hallways for anyone in hiding and debated which company files to seize. At least 57 workers were arrested, more than 20 were separated from their children, and some were denied access to attorneys or family before being sent to out-of-state detention facilities. Pedro Rojas, a U.S. citizen who was seized and interrogated, said agents targeted him and his coworkers because they are Latino. Only five of those arrested faced criminal charges, the most serious being unlawful reentry, and two plaintiffs were deported, though one has since been allowed to reenter the country. The NYCLU and the Worker Justice Center of New York filed a class action lawsuit against DHS alleging officers exceeded their search warrants and violated workers' Fourth Amendment rights, and body camera footage reviewed by the Associated Press as part of that lawsuit has now become public.

A 24-year-old Guatemalan man who became a legal U.S. resident two years earlier was briefly detained, photographed, and released during a raid by federal agents, including Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations, at Nutrition Bar Confectioners in Cato, New York. His partner, who lacks legal status, was among dozens of workers taken away by agents before he could speak to her, and he did not know where she had been detained. Plant owner Lenny Schmidt said all employees had been vetted and had legal documentation, called the raid "terrifying," and said he would have cooperated if notified beforehand. Cayuga County Sheriff Brian Schenck said deputies assisted HSI in executing a search warrant tied to an ongoing criminal investigation, prompting state Sen. Rachel May to question why workers were detained.

Y.A. fled Somalia after being subjected to female genital mutilation and narrowly escaping forced marriage and attempted rape. After entering the U.S. in October 2024, she applied for asylum. On September 4, 2025, an immigration judge pretermitted her applications and ordered her removed to Honduras or Uganda under Asylum Cooperative Agreements. She remains detained with her appeal pending, fearing severe harm in both countries as a Black, Muslim woman.