Human Impact Project

Luis Silas, a 58-year-old Mexican national, was detained by ICE agents in February 2026 while shopping for wood near 43rd Avenue and Camelback Road in Phoenix to build a bookcase for his wife. Agents appeared to identify him through his car's license plate, addressed him by name, and threw him to the ground during the arrest, injuring his arm. His son, Isaac Luis-Azamar, witnessed the arrest and intervened after believing an agent was about to strike his father; he was himself arrested and accused of assaulting an ICE officer. Silas was held for three days at ICE's Central Avenue processing facility in Phoenix, where he said he was given only a bean burrito every six hours, allowed to shower once, and had to wait to contact his family.

Stoyan Stoyanov, who has lived in the U.S. for 10 years while navigating his immigration case, says he was unlawfully arrested by ICE and held in detention for three months. He says he lost 24 pounds and developed health issues after being underfed in the detention center, and fell behind on rent and credit card payments as a result. He has started a GoFundMe to help cover legal fees, overdue bills, and medical costs stemming from his detention.

Humberto García, a Cuban national deported to Mexico after living 35 years in the United States, tried to travel through the mountains near Tapachula to avoid migration checkpoints. He was approached by three armed attackers who robbed him and shot him twice in the torso; he stumbled for nearly an hour before reaching a road where authorities took him to a hospital. After three days recovering, with no organ damage from the bullets, he had no choice but to return to Tapachula, where he said he was left with nothing to eat and nowhere to sleep.

Carlos, a recent graduate of Miami Beach Senior High who was preparing to begin college in finance, was detained by ICE and is being held at a Border Patrol facility. His family says he is being given little food, sleeps on the ground with only a paper blanket in cold conditions, and has suffered a recurrence of pancreatic pain that staff reportedly cannot treat because he is under 21. His brother describes him as hardworking and caring, noting he maintained top grades, played high school football, and enjoys mountain biking and helping others at the gym, and says his mental health is deteriorating in custody. The family is raising funds to hire a lawyer, seek bail, and fight his case before a judge.

A man was struck by a car while ICE agents pursued him on foot near Jersey City's Liberty State Park light rail station on a Wednesday evening around 6:20 p.m., and the driver fled the scene. City officials said an ICE agent was also hit by the vehicle, with both the agent and the man sustaining minor injuries. Footage showed agents handcuffing the man on the sidewalk and placing him in an ICE vehicle before an ambulance took him to Jersey City Medical Center, where agents and the man later entered the emergency room. The mayor's chief of staff said Jersey City police were not involved in the pursuit or arrest and only responded afterward to complete an accident report, adding that such ICE operations "put residents and bystanders at risk." ICE said it had transported a patient in custody for medical evaluation and that standard protocols were followed.

Lorenzo Sánchez, born in Guantánamo, Cuba, was studying to become a heavy-machinery mechanic when he fled Cuba by boat in the 1980 Mariel boatlift after saying Fidel Castro's government had targeted him for his political ideas. In the U.S. he learned English while working at a museum and school, earned certificates in cabinet making, blueprint reading, and technical drawing, and spent decades building a life in Florida. In June 2025, in his mid-60s, he was arrested for drinking a beer on a Florida beach; a records check turned up a 1991 deportation order and ICE took him to a Miami detention center, then to a hospital in El Paso while he was still recovering from diabetes-related amputation of the toes on his left foot. Told he would be sent to Cuba, he was instead taken across the border — "You're going to Mexico. Cuba doesn't want you," officials told him — and bused over three days from Piedras Negras to Villahermosa, Tabasco, a city he had never visited. After 150 days at the Amparito Shelter he was left on the streets for at least five months, struggling to find water, food, and medication. "Dogs live better than we do, and they eat every day," he said. He was eventually recognized as a refugee in Mexico and is settling into long-term shelter in Guanajuato.

Carlos Josué Marchena-Marchena, a 36-year-old Costa Rican father of four who worked as a ride-service driver, was found unresponsive on September 18, 2026 at Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield, Louisiana, and pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. He had Type 1 diabetes and had been detained since January, transferred between facilities in Michigan, California, and Louisiana; his cousin said his care was adequate in Michigan but worsened after later transfers, though his sister said his decline began in Michigan after he was placed in a security cell following an argument with another detainee. His sister, girlfriend, and a fellow detainee said he repeatedly complained of missed insulin shots, inadequate food and water, and worsening symptoms including chest pain, vomiting, chills, and stomach pain, with his girlfriend saying he called around midnight the night before his death saying his medication wasn't helping. An immigration judge ordered his removal on July 29, 2026, and he had requested bail and voluntary deportation to Costa Rica, both denied. ICE said he received appropriate medical care, while a fellow detainee said he received only irregular insulin shots and a single pill for his symptoms. His death is the third reported at the Louisiana facility since April 2026, following a DHS Inspector General report finding violations in medical care, food service, and use of force, and at least the 58th ICE detainee death nationwide since January 2025. A GoFundMe was launched to return his body to Costa Rica while his family awaits autopsy results.

Nika, a 32-year-old Iranian woman who fled Iran after protesting the regime and losing friends in the government's crackdown, had been granted 'withholding of removal' by a US immigration judge to prevent her return to Iran. She was released from ICE custody on May 28, 2026, but days later was re-arrested during what officers called a routine check-in in California. She was handcuffed, shackled, and placed on a deportation flight with 17 other migrants to the Central African Republic, a country she said she had never heard of or visited. Since arriving in Bangui, she has largely stayed indoors out of fear, been stopped by local police demanding bribes, and was hospitalized after contracting malaria. Her immigration lawyer is now filing a federal lawsuit seeking to bring her back to the US and reopen her asylum claim.

Jorge (a pseudonym), a Guatemalan man who fled gang extortion threats and joined family in San Diego, was arrested by ICE during a raid on his construction worksite after working there for five months. He spent three months in detention, much of it in frigid holding cells where he slept on bare concrete with only a foil sheet, and developed bronchitis after officers allegedly made cells colder in retaliation for complaints; staff denied him hospital care. He said he signed English-language deportation papers he could not read after being threatened with years in federal detention, later learning the signing carried a 10-year reentry bar, and described being shackled during his deportation flight to Guatemala.

Gisèle, who fled fighting between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, was deported by US authorities to Cameroon under a third-country removal agreement. Suffering from a thyroid condition, she was never able to obtain her medication at the Yaoundé migrant shelter despite repeated requests, and after five months there she abandoned plans to seek asylum in Cameroon and agreed to be sent back to the DR Congo out of concern her health would worsen.

José Serrano Salgado, Ecuador's former interior minister under President Rafael Correa, fled to Miami in 2021 and later applied for asylum. ICE arrested him outside his Miami home in mid-2025, and he spent nearly a year detained at Krome North Service Processing Center, where a source said he lost about 25 pounds and his prediabetes worsened into diabetes. In May 2026, an immigration judge denied his asylum claim but granted deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture after he showed he faced torture if returned to Ecuador. Three Trump-appointed appeals judges reversed that protection within a day of reviewing the case, and Serrano was deported to Ecuador within hours, sent on a private jet in late August 2026. He now faces murder charges over the 2023 assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio and is held in a maximum-security prison, where a source said he has been abused, including having his fingernails smashed, being denied food, and being told footage of him stripped naked would be shared with Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa, a political rival of his former boss.

A crowd gathered at the scene of the ICE shooting in Austin throughout the afternoon, and officers fired pepper ball-like projectiles at the crowd after some demonstrators threw rocks and water bottles at law enforcement while people were leaving the area. A 14-year-old boy was among those affected by the chemical agent, according to his father, who spoke to Austin police. Austin Mayor Kirk Watson called for an independent investigation into the earlier shooting, citing the chaos it caused in the city.

Roberto Mosquera del Peral, a 59-year-old Cuban immigrant who arrived in the U.S. as a child during the 1980 Mariel boatlift and worked as a plumber while raising four daughters, was detained by ICE at a routine immigration appointment and held at the Krome detention center in Florida. He was later flown from Texas and deported without his consent to Eswatini in southern Africa under the Trump administration's third-country deportation program, since Cuba has refused to accept his return for nearly three decades. He has been held in a maximum-security cell at Matsapha Correctional Complex without being charged with any offense or given access to legal counsel. His lawyer said he staged a 30-day hunger strike, at one point raising serious health concerns, to win small concessions such as wearing his own clothes and having a cellphone to speak with family. Civic groups in Eswatini have filed court cases challenging the legality of detaining him and other deportees without charge.

Jose Gregorio "Grego" Pena Pacheco, a 51-year-old Venezuelan man living in Davenport, Florida, was detained by ICE on September 17, 2026 while driving a short distance from his home to take out the trash, still in his pajamas without shoes. He has a pending asylum case, is authorized to work in the U.S., and has no known criminal history, but has a chronic illness requiring daily medication that he did not have with him at the time of detention. His sister Eliana received one brief call from him on September 18 during which he could not identify his location, and family and friends have since been unable to confirm his whereabouts or whether he received his medication. He reportedly told his sister he was given three documents in English, a language he does not speak fluently, asking him to choose between leaving the U.S., paying for release, or remaining detained while fighting his case. His family has retained an immigration attorney and is asking the community for help locating him and information about his case.

Leonardo Sánchez, a Cuban migrant with a large abdominal hernia and a pending operation, was deported to Equatorial Guinea and is being held at the Hotel Bamy in Malabo. His mother, Caridad, said from Miami that she has not heard from him in a week because authorities took away detainees' phones to prevent them from speaking with the press. "What they're doing is criminal; the treatment is unfair," she said.

Demonstrators have repeatedly clashed with federal agents outside the ICE detention facility in Broadview, Illinois, over several consecutive weeks, protesting detention conditions and showing support for detainees. On September 19, 2025, protesters blocking the facility's driveway were pepper-sprayed, including directly in the face, and an ICE vehicle struck at least one protester who sustained minor injuries; a witnessing attorney described agents as pushing protesters in an 'aggressive and violent manner.' On September 26, agents used pepper balls, tear gas, and baton rounds against more than 100 protesters, taking 11 into custody, with five later facing federal charges. On October 4, agents again deployed tear gas, pepper balls, and other chemical munitions against protesters, journalists, and legal observers, with chemical agents also affecting nearby residents; congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh and Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss were arrested. Broadview's mayor sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security citing dangers to residents from chemical agents and blocked emergency access, while lawsuits were filed alleging excessive force and First Amendment violations.

Raúl Suárez Herrero, a 59-year-old Cuban man who moved to the U.S. at age 12 and lived there for nearly five decades, was detained by ICE during a routine annual check-in in July 2025. He was held at the 'Alligator Alcatraz' detention facility in the Florida Everglades, where he says guards locked him in a metal cage roughly the size of a phone booth for more than 15 hours after he prayed aloud for a fellow detainee having a seizure. Suárez said he was kicked hard enough to bruise his leg, denied food and medical care, and left unable to lie down while fearing snakes and mosquitoes entering the cage, an experience he described as leaving him psychologically 'shattered.' A former truck driver who built a business with his brother, a U.S. citizen who died of COVID in 2021, Suárez was deported to Mexico in February 2026 after a federal judge's deadline for his release or removal passed. A DHS inspector general report later confirmed the facility used such small cages, calling the practice 'highly unconventional,' though DHS disputes claims that conditions were inhumane.

Edgar Cabrera Gomez was struck by an ICE agent's patrol vehicle after a traffic stop of a van on the Liberty Expressway in Dougherty County, Georgia. Authorities said all occupants fled the van on foot toward a wooded area, and Gomez fell in the median where he became lodged under the ICE vehicle. His family disputes claims that he was driving, saying he was only injured because agents ran him over while he was running. ICE agents were still searching for the other two occupants of the van.

A Maryland mother, who is undocumented, delayed seeking medical care for her U.S. citizen son's severe asthma attack out of fear of encountering ICE agents on the road. The boy was eventually taken to a local clinic and then medevaced to a Washington, D.C. hospital. A new American Academy of Pediatrics survey of more than 1,600 pediatricians nationwide, conducted between April and June 2026, found 40% reported families avoiding medical care, 31% reported families avoiding programs like Medicaid or food assistance, and 21% reported families keeping children out of school due to immigration enforcement fears, with urban practices reporting avoidance at nearly double the rate of rural ones. Pediatricians trace the trend partly to the 2025 rescission of federal guidance that had kept immigration agents away from hospitals, clinics and schools, and to a broadened public charge rule.

Laura Rojas Ortiz, a 21-year-old mother, has been detained at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley for more than 40 days while pregnant with a high-risk pregnancy. She was detained during a mandated ICE check-in in Dallas while applying for a U visa after she and her young son were struck by a stray bullet in their neighborhood, despite regularly attending check-ins while wearing an ankle monitor. Two days before her detention, she had gone to the ER with miscarriage symptoms and was diagnosed with a high-risk obstetric condition; a physician at Dilley later determined she needed to see a specialist, but the facility has not scheduled the consultation. Now approaching her third trimester, she reports persistent abdominal pain and bleeding and says she has not received an ultrasound, blood tests, or an OB-GYN visit. Her mother, Paola, said facility staff moved her to a medical room during a congressional visit and removed her afterward, and that her toddler son, who is lactose intolerant, was given whole milk at the facility. The advocacy group Each Step Home has provided commissary support so she can buy food for her children.