Human Impact Project

Iris Dayana Monterroso Lemus, a Guatemalan woman, lost her son to a stillbirth while detained by ICE at Richwood Correctional Center in Louisiana. The Trump administration publicly disputed her account, claiming she received full prenatal care, but federal documents later obtained by The Intercept show a lack of prenatal care and no record of a scheduled OB-GYN visit or ultrasound. Ten days after the stillbirth, Monterroso Lemus was shackled, put on a plane, and deported to Guatemala, causing her postpartum visit to be canceled. An OB-GYN physician who reviewed the records said the administration's denial appeared aimed at covering itself, while a senator called the treatment of pregnant women in custody unconscionable.

Viktoriia Bulavina, a Ukrainian immigrant married to a U.S. citizen, was handcuffed and detained by federal immigration agents immediately after a marriage-based green card interview at the USCIS office in downtown San Diego. She was held for five days in poor conditions, including an open toilet in view of guards, expired food, and denial of medication, before being released following media coverage and attorney intervention. She now faces removal proceedings.

Abelardo Avellaneda Delgado, a 68-year-old construction worker who had lived in the United States for 40 years, died on May 5, 2025, while being transported from Lowndes County Jail to Stewart Detention Center in Georgia. The coroner suspected an aortic aneurysm as the cause of death, though the exact cause remained under investigation. According to his family, Delgado had no prior health conditions but was placed in a wheelchair during his detention and given medications he had never taken before. He had been detained multiple times since 1979 as an undocumented immigrant.

Sen Miao Lin, a 67-year-old Chinese man, was detained at Delaney Hall ICE detention center where he repeatedly asked for but never received medication for his Type 2 diabetes and hypertension for nearly a month. At one point during his detention, he collapsed, lost consciousness, and was rushed to the emergency room. His attorney filed a federal lawsuit alleging this medical neglect in May 2025. His case is one of over 70 lawsuits filed by detainees at Delaney Hall alleging medical neglect and deficiencies at the facility.

Marisol Ordonez Vargas, a transgender woman originally from Central America, was detained by ICE in October 2023. She alleged she was denied toilet paper and medical treatment for a badly broken nose, and said she was sexually assaulted during her month in custody but did not report it because she did not trust guards and feared it would delay her release.

ICE deported at least two families including three U.S. citizen children aged 2, 4, and 7 from New Orleans in early morning operations on April 25, 2025. The families were held without legal access. One child with metastatic cancer was deported without medication and a pregnant mother was deported without prenatal care arrangements. The deportations occurred after ICE reversed course and expedited the process before courts reopened. A habeas corpus petition had been filed.

A 4-year-old U.S. citizen child with Stage 4 cancer and his 7-year-old sister were deported to Honduras with their mother on Friday morning. ICE was aware of the child's active cancer treatment in the United States but deported him without his medication. Attorneys say the mother did not sign or write any consent, did not speak with lawyers or family before deportation, and wanted to make alternative arrangements for her U.S. citizen children.

Marie Ange Blaise, a 44-year-old Haitian woman, died on April 25, 2025, at the Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach, Florida, while in ICE custody. She had been detained since mid-February after being stopped at Saint Croix International Airport for attempting to board a flight without a valid visa, and was issued an expedited removal notice before being transferred through multiple facilities including San Juan, Krome North Processing Center in Miami, and a Louisiana facility. Fellow detainees said Blaise had complained of chest pains for hours; staff checked her blood pressure, found hypertension, gave her pills, and told her to rest. She later began shaking and screaming, and when other detained women cried out for help, guards reportedly ignored their pleas, with one officer approaching, looking at her, and walking away. It took roughly eight minutes for a medical provider and 15 to 20 more minutes for a rescue team to arrive; she was pronounced dead at 8:35 p.m. Facility staff reportedly told the women afterward to stop discussing what they had witnessed.

Amilcar Lisser-Posadas, a 29-year-old Honduran national and former DACA recipient with two U.S. citizen daughters, was apprehended in Shelby County, Tennessee in March 2025 for driving with an expired license and transferred to ICE custody. He was moved between multiple detention facilities over four weeks and filed a legal request citing fear of persecution in Honduras, which received no response. At Alexandria Staging Facility, he was detained for approximately 12 days in overcrowded conditions with inadequate sanitation, food, and medical care—arriving sick with chest congestion, fever, and ear infection but receiving no medication until the final two days. On April 23, 2025, he was deported to Honduras on GlobalX charter flights despite his pending legal request. He was later apprehended again at the southern border in May 2025 attempting to reunite with his family and is now facing deportation again from a federal prison.

A family of six asylum seekers from southwestern Africa — parents Josefina and José and their four children, ages 13, 10, 5 and 11 months — were held in a single windowless cell at a CBP facility in Blaine, Washington for about a month starting in April 2025, according to an ACLU complaint. Josefina, who was five months into a high-risk pregnancy, was hospitalized twice during the detention after CBP staff allegedly kept her in unsafe conditions despite hospital warnings, and she suffered pregnancy complications. The children reportedly went weeks without mental stimulation or physical activity, and the 13-year-old was allegedly handcuffed when taken to shower. The ACLU of Washington filed a federal claim seeking $15 million in damages from the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection, one of 54 such claims filed nationwide in July under the Federal Tort Claims Act.

A 52-year-old Chinese woman died by suicide while detained at the Yuma Border Patrol station in Arizona after overstaying her B-1/B-2 visitor visa. She was initially detained in California and transferred to Yuma. Surveillance footage documented the incident, showing she created a noose. CBP records indicate required welfare checks were not properly conducted or were falsely documented, and medical intervention did not occur for nearly two hours after she was found unresponsive. Representative Pramila Jayapal called for accountability regarding CBP's failure to follow detainee safety procedures.

Tim, a Nigerian man, was transferred to the Batavia ICE detention facility in April 2025 after suffering a major concussion from a fall while finishing a federal prison sentence. He was discharged from a Massachusetts hospital with nine prescribed medications and orders for inpatient physical therapy. At Batavia, he went at least a month without medication and received only one physical therapy session before being deported in summer 2025. He now requires a walker and reports severe mental health issues and insomnia.

Luis Muñoz Pinto, a 27-year-old Venezuelan who had been studying robotics engineering, was detained during a scheduled Customs and Border Protection appointment under the CBP One program and deported to El Salvador's CECOT prison on March 15, 2025, under the Alien Enemies Act, where he said lights stayed on 24/7, food and medicine were withheld, and bathing water had to be used for drinking. U.S. officials pointed to rose tattoos, which he says represent his twin sisters, as evidence linking him to the Tren de Aragua gang, an accusation he denies. He had no criminal record in the United States and was released on July 18, 2025, returning to Colombia. A federal judge has since ruled that Muñoz Pinto and more than 100 other deportees must be allowed to return to the U.S. for due process, and he hopes to clear his name and resume studying engineering there.

Fabian Schmidt, a German-born electrical engineer and green card holder who was detained by CBP officers at Boston Logan Airport on March 7, 2025, and interrogated for days before being transferred to ICE custody at the Donald W. Wyatt detention facility in Rhode Island, was held for a total of two months before his release. He now lives in Nashua, New Hampshire, where he has married his partner, Bhavani Hodgkins, with whom he has an 8-year-old daughter. Schmidt is paying roughly $60,000 in legal fees and related costs stemming from his detention, and says he is pursuing U.S. citizenship and writing a book about his experience. The German embassy had previously confirmed it was in close contact with U.S. authorities and the family during his detention.

Genry Ruiz Guillén, a 29-year-old Honduran man with schizoaffective disorder, was transferred to ICE custody in October 2024 and held at Krome North Service Processing Center in Florida. While detained, he suffered seizures, dizziness, fainting spells, confusion, and loss of consciousness. In December 2024, during a phone call, he told his mother three times that he was about to faint and did not feel well; she was unable to reach him afterward. He was hospitalized for acute psychosis and later transferred between three Larkin Health System hospitals for psychiatric care and treatment of rhabdomyolysis, a life-threatening muscle breakdown condition. He died in custody; his mother traveled to the detention center seeking information and was notified of his death weeks later, and his body was repatriated to Honduras. The Miami-Dade Medical Examiner ruled his cause of death as 'complications of schizoaffective disorder,' but medical experts, including a former New York City chief medical examiner, questioned this finding, citing concerns about multiple medications in his system and the unresolved rhabdomyolysis. He was one of seven migrants who died in ICE custody during the first three months of the Trump administration.

Maksym Chernyak, a 44-year-old Ukrainian man who fled Russia's invasion and entered the U.S. legally under a humanitarian parole program in August 2024, was arrested in January 2025 on a domestic battery/assault charge and transferred to ICE custody at the Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami-Dade County. In the days before his death, he reported fever, chest pain, an irregular heartbeat, and blood in his stool, but went several days without seeing a doctor and his elevated blood pressure went untreated. On February 18, while held in an overcrowded room with about 30 other detainees, he suffered a stroke with multiple seizures and became unresponsive; staff reportedly took 15 to 40 minutes to call 911 and initially accused him of drug use, though toxicology later showed no intoxication. He was hospitalized at HCA Florida Kendall Hospital, where doctors confirmed a hypertensive intracerebral hemorrhage, declared him brain dead, and he died two days later. His wife said he had been in good health before detention and was pressured to sign documents without a translator. Medical experts reviewing his case for Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights concluded that delays in emergency response and higher-level care likely contributed to his death, and his case was examined as part of a broader look at rising ICE detention deaths.

Sering Ceesay, a Gambian man with serious heart conditions, was detained by ICE on February 19, 2025, after showing up for a routine immigration appointment in New York City. He was shackled and transferred to the Batavia facility, where he went two weeks without his heart medications. He subsequently suffered a stroke-like syndrome. A physician noted that without strict adherence to his medications, he faced risk of recurrent heart attacks, worsening peripheral artery disease, and strokes. A U.S. District Judge later ordered his release.

Harpinder Singh Chauhan, a 56-year-old British entrepreneur and father of two on an E-2 investor visa who had lived in the United States since 2016, was detained by ICE on February 11 despite lawful presence and serious medical conditions including diabetes, pancreatitis, asthma, and heart issues. He was shackled and transported seven hours to Krome North, where he spent nearly four days in overcrowded, freezing processing cells with no beds, showers, or privacy. ICE officers confiscated his insulin and asthma inhaler, which his family had delivered to the facility, and denied him prescribed medications and his dietary regimen. He contracted a respiratory illness amid an uncontained tuberculosis outbreak. At FDC, officers locked him in a cell without a functioning toilet or air conditioning and threatened him when he requested to move. On April 20, after nearly a week without insulin, Chauhan collapsed while standing in a dinner line at BTC and was hospitalized with signs of cardiac distress. His son Aaron could not obtain information from facility staff and discovered his father had been admitted under an alias name, "Hank Campbell." Officers transferred Chauhan back to BTC after three days in the hospital. Throughout detention, when he repeatedly asked about his personal possessions including his passport, staff responded with hostile all-caps messages. An officer mocked his name during roll call; the officer was briefly suspended with pay but returned to duty. In mid-May, facility staff informed Chauhan that his passport had been lost, further delaying his deportation. He was deported to the United Kingdom in June.

Arbella Rodríguez Márquez, who has chronic lymphocytic leukemia and held a valid green card for two years before it was revoked, has now spent more than a year in ICE detention at the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona. State legislators, including members of the LGBTQIA caucus, and U.S. Rep. Yassamin Ansari have called for her humanitarian release, citing weight loss of 60 pounds, anemia and vomiting blood. ICE has disputed claims of inadequate care, stating she has been seen by medical professionals 13 times and has an upcoming offsite medical appointment.

Chidi Nwagbo, a Nigerian migrant who had lived in the U.S. for 37 years, was detained at the Buffalo Federal Detention facility in Batavia on February 10, 2025, after attempting to cross into Canada. He arrived at the facility with frostbite and was under doctor's orders to see a specialist at Kessler Burn and Trauma Center in Rochester within a week. ICE staff never took him to the appointment. By the time he saw a doctor 16 days later, portions of six fingers had to be amputated due to untreated frostbite.