Human Impact Project

Wisteguens Jean Quely Charles, a Haitian national who had lived in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status since 2013, was arrested by ICE in the Boston area (Mattapan) on January 22, 2025, in a video that went viral after he shouted profanities and declared 'Biden forever' while resisting arrest. DHS said his TPS had been terminated by USCIS in 2022 after he accumulated 17 criminal convictions, including assault, weapons, and drug offenses, and alleged gang membership. Massachusetts' Norfolk House of Correction had released him in October 2023 without honoring an ICE detainer. He spent roughly 19 months in federal custody before an immigration judge issued a final removal order in November 2025. ICE deported Charles to Haiti on September 10, 2026, via a flight from Louisiana, during which officials said he became combative.

Federal ICE agents arrived around 6 a.m. Thursday, September 3, 2025, near Stoneybrook Court and Schaffer Drive in Frederick, Maryland's Taskers Chance neighborhood, searching for a man who had fled a vehicle stop. Agents occupied the area for nearly 40 hours, prompting residents to stay inside and skip work, while observers from the Western Maryland Immigrant Rights Collective monitored the scene. On Friday night, when agents ordered the block cleared, a couple dozen residents and observers linked arms and sat down to block a doorway, chanting 'We shall not be moved.' ICE vehicles drove onto a sidewalk, nearly striking City Council Vice President Katie Nash, and agents used batons, grabbed and pushed people, and dragged protesters off a porch, injuring several, some requiring hospitalization. No arrests were made, and it did not appear anyone inside the targeted home was taken into custody. Frederick police who responded did not assist the federal agents. City Council President César Díaz and Vice President Katie Nash said observers were not violent, with Nash stating, 'It's nuts. Now people are just not leaving their houses.' Frederick Mayor Michael O'Connor, Díaz, and the county executive publicly objected to the tactics, and a local representative called for a full investigation into the agents' use of force.

A federal magistrate judge in the Southern District of Georgia denied the Trump administration's attempt to dismiss a habeas petition filed by Ya'akub Vijandre, who has been held in ICE detention for nearly a year over his speech and advocacy. The ruling allows his case to proceed to a district judge for further review. Advocates say the decision is a step toward his potential release from custody.

Brandon Domena, a lifelong Passaic County, New Jersey resident and U.S. citizen, was detained by ICE agents for about five hours after a confrontation broke out while he and his family watched agents arrest a neighbor, reportedly a Mexican man wanted for domestic violence. Video showed agents in tactical gear restraining Domena face-down on a lawn and handcuffing him, with a witness saying his arm was nearly dislocated; he says he was left with bruises and marks on his hands. Domena said he repeatedly told agents he was a U.S. citizen, believes he was racially profiled, and was denied water, a restroom, medical attention and a phone call during his detention. DHS alleges he spit at and kicked an officer and was arrested on potential charges of assaulting, resisting or impeding federal officers, but he has not been criminally charged. He disputes DHS's account, says an agent later apologized to him, was released the same day, and has hired a lawyer.

Two volunteers working as legal observers for Danbury Unites for Immigrants were pepper sprayed by ICE agents during an encounter on Wednesday, with one of them hospitalized afterward, according to co-founder Juan Fonseca Tapia. Tapia said an ICE vehicle struck him as agents were leaving the parking lot. The hospitalized legal observer was treated and has since returned to volunteer work, the group said.

Sisi Rose, 33, a member of the Cheyenne River and Sisseton-Wahpeton tribes, was tased and tackled to the pavement by police while protesting outside the ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations office in Sacramento, California. An officer allegedly shot pepper spray into her mouth and then arrested her for assault after she spit it out, while officers knelt on her neck with their body weight. She was hospitalized after the taser probe embedded into the bone of her wrist, with doctors saying it may not be safely removed for a week, and she continued to experience burning and respiratory distress from the pepper spray. Rose said she has been protesting for months against what she calls ICE's unlawful detentions of Native Americans and U.S. citizens, saying, "My kids could be snatched up off the streets, and we're from here, and that scares me."

ICE's Boston field office conducted a four-day targeted enforcement operation the week of August 24 in southern Connecticut, arresting 118 people. Officials said many of those arrested had previously been released from local jails after officials declined to honor ICE detainers. Those detained include individuals from Honduras, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, and Guatemala, with charges or convictions ranging from sexual assault against a child, child abuse, weapons offenses, drug dealing, and assault. ICE named one individual, Harvin Rivera-Guardado, in connection with the operation. An ICE field office director criticized Connecticut's sanctuary policies, including the TRUST Act, saying they obstruct enforcement efforts.

Federal immigration officers pinned a pickup truck on Interstate 55 before chasing and detaining a man, who was then taken into custody in the McKinley Park neighborhood on Chicago's Southwest Side, according to Ald. Julia Ramirez. Illinois State Police confirmed a two-vehicle crash involving ICE agents near the I-55 northbound ramp to Damen Avenue, with no injuries reported. A reporter heard an ICE officer tell protesters the man had a prior DUI. About a dozen federal vehicles arrived on South Wolcott Avenue, drawing a crowd of residents who shouted for agents to leave and remained at the scene for hours.

Ernesto Alejandro Perez-Garcia, a Mexican national, was arrested by ICE agents while on his morning walk along the Redondo Beach esplanade. He initially denied his identity but admitted the truth after agents showed him a previous mugshot. Perez-Garcia has a lengthy arrest history dating to 2003 and had previously been deported, later re-entering the U.S. multiple times; he said his children live in the United States and he does not know what will happen next. Redondo Beach police had twice declined to honor ICE detainer requests for him, in 2020 and 2026.

A Mexican mother of three said about eight ICE agents in five vehicles blocked her outside her Los Angeles home as she returned from dropping her children at school, with her young daughter still in the car. A neighbor began recording and told the agents to leave, which paused the arrest and allowed the mother to avoid being taken into custody. The woman, who said she had a scheduled appointment with federal immigration officials, said she now fears being deported.

Maria Del Carmen Negrete Raya, 39, a Mexican citizen, was arrested and charged with three counts of battery on a law enforcement officer after an encounter with ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations officers in Fort Myers, Florida. Authorities said ICE officers attempted to stop a vehicle registered to a non-U.S. citizen, and after the occupants fled, Negrete Raya confronted the officers, with one officer suffering minor injuries. Records show Negrete Raya entered the United States without inspection and filed an asylum application in 2023, and officials said she remains subject to removal proceedings. State prosecutors plan to seek reclassification of the charges as second-degree felonies based on her immigration status.

Two U.S. citizens were physically assaulted by ICE agents in the Bensenville suburb of Chicago, Illinois while observing and filming an immigration enforcement action. One woman said she repeatedly told agents she was a U.S. citizen, but they yanked her to the ground while trying to grab her phone and then shot her with a taser. A second U.S. citizen was taken by ambulance to the hospital in critical condition, with a witness saying he had been hit repeatedly.

Volunteers and immigration advocates launched a 'Know Your Rights Week' campaign in Queens, going door to door to educate residents about responding to ICE encounters. The effort was inspired by volunteer Odilia Gonzalez, whose undocumented brother from Mexico was detained for months after being stopped on his way to work. Local officials said their offices have received numerous calls about ICE detentions in the community, and some also called for restoring Temporary Protected Status for Haitians after its termination.

Linda Wolff, a 72-year-old fashion stylist and longtime immigrant rights supporter from Manhattan, was pepper-sprayed in the face by a masked ICE agent while filming federal officers near Inwood Hill Park during what officials referred to as 'Operation Rotten Apple.' Wolff said she had learned of ICE's presence via social media and was recording from a distance, never touching or acting aggressively toward officers, when an agent approached and sprayed her without provocation. She said her eyes and skin burned afterward but continued documenting ICE activity in the neighborhood and said she would not be deterred from doing so again. DHS said agents used pepper spray to control an 'unruly, combative' crowd while recovering a vandalized government van, describing their response as appropriate and within training. Governor Kathy Hochul condemned the incident as part of a pattern of aggressive federal immigration enforcement tactics against New Yorkers, and Wolff's attorney filed a claim against ICE under New York's newly enacted Bivens Act, calling it one of the first tests of the statute and describing the pepper-spraying as 'purely punitive.'

More than 140 detainees at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma are on a hunger strike to protest insufficient and unsanitary food, lack of medical care, and poor detention conditions. According to La Resistencia, detainees are being denied adequate meals and medical attention by GEO Group, the private company operating the facility, with meal times delayed for hours and food quality described as unacceptable. The detainees are demanding better food and medical care.

Carolina Molina, a U.S. citizen and licensed mental health therapist who works with immigration lawyers, was confronted at gunpoint by a masked ICE agent on August 10, 2026, in a Falls Church, Virginia parking lot. Molina was distributing business cards for immigration legal services when she witnessed ICE agents detaining two Latino men and shouted at the officers from her car. ICE vehicles boxed in her car and an agent drew his firearm, pointing it at her through the driver's-side window while accusing her of trying to run officers over. Molina denied the allegation, saying she was turning her car to avoid drawing attention to the attorney's office, and recorded the encounter on dashcam and cellphone video that she later shared publicly. DHS claimed she was 'weaponizing her vehicle,' but no charges were filed. Democratic Representatives Don Beyer and Suhas Subramanyam called for accountability, with Beyer describing Molina as a mother and citing a pattern of DHS misconduct.

Eric Ornelas, a 19-year-old U.S. citizen, says ICE detained him after he recorded an immigration enforcement operation. According to Ornelas, ICE used him as bait to apprehend his father. ICE has not responded to media inquiries about the specific details of Ornelas' encounter.

Debora Kapisha, a registered nurse from Zambia working at Maine Medical Center in Portland, was detained by ICE on July 30 at Boston Logan Airport after her visa expired in November 2024. According to ICE, she entered the U.S. on May 14, 2024, and remained in the country after her visa expiration. Kapisha maintained a valid registered nurse license since June 2025 with no disciplinary action and argued she had legal work authorization while her asylum case was being adjudicated. The Maine State Nurses Association organized a rally within 24 hours of learning of her detention and mobilized community support, with over 100 Maine Medical Center nurses and supporters protesting alongside Democratic officials including Senate nominee Troy Jackson and gubernatorial nominee Hannah Pingree, describing her as a trusted, compassionate caregiver whose absence affected patient care. She was released from ICE custody on August 7 following the protests. The union and MaineHealth are working to sponsor her for permanent resident status through an EB-3 visa, for which skilled nurses are eligible and exempt from standard labor certification requirements.

ICE arrested Heriton Da Silva Aredes, a Brazilian national previously deported in 2008 who later reentered the U.S., during a targeted operation in Taunton, Massachusetts. He faces a pending charge of negligent homicide with a motor vehicle after a November 20, 2025 crash in which his car struck 75-year-old Kenneth Carr of Taunton, a former Fall River fisherman, who died two days later from his injuries. ICE said local and state authorities released Aredes from custody on three prior occasions without honoring ICE detainers before he was ultimately arrested at large.

Protesters who had staged a more than two-month tree-sit in Lochiel, Arizona, to save a roughly 100-year-old Fremont cottonwood from border wall construction were removed by law enforcement on Oct. 6, after which contractors brought in equipment and knocked down the tree. According to Sierra Club borderlands coordinator Erick Meza, who has served as a spokesman for the protest group, more than 50 Border Patrol agents entered the encampment on private property before dawn, and a crane was used to pull a demonstrator from a platform about 60 feet up in the tree's branches. Meza said roughly a dozen people were arrested, some of whom were later released; Customs and Border Protection confirmed the tree's removal. Santa Cruz County Sheriff David Hathaway said his office was not involved in and was not notified of the raid beforehand.