Human Impact Project

Gustavo, a restaurant cook from Mexico who had lived in Santa Barbara for seven years, was arrested by ICE agents in the lobby of Santa Barbara County jail in January 2026 as he was being released. A judge had ordered him to wear an ankle monitor and return home to await trial on a domestic dispute charge, but ICE agents—masked and armed with handcuffs—intercepted him before he could leave the facility. Gustavo had only a minor driving offense on his record, which under California's SB 54 sanctuary law should have barred local authorities from coordinating with ICE to place him in immigration custody. The arrest occurred outside official procedures in the jail lobby rather than through the authorized "sally port" transfer process, potentially violating state law.

Hanne Daguman, a Norwegian national who entered the U.S. on an F-1 student visa in 2022, was detained by ICE on November 17, 2025, during a USCIS marriage-based green card interview in San Diego after acknowledging her visa had lapsed. Daguman, who has Type 1 diabetes and no criminal record, was held for nine days at Otay Mesa Detention Center, where she said she was denied proper medical care and experienced dangerously high blood sugar levels and untreated infections. A court hearing in her case was scheduled for November 24, 2025. In January 2026, a judge terminated her removal case, but she remains fitted with an ankle monitor that ICE has not yet authorized for removal despite the court order.

Isabel, a 41-year-old single mother of two from Honduras with a pending asylum case and valid five-year work permit, was arrested at her monthly immigration check-in in Bloomington. She was detained for four days across three facilities before a federal judge ordered her release with her belongings. However, ICE returned only her wallet and checks; her work permit, state ID, daughter's U.S. passport, and over $700 in checks were withheld. Despite the judge's order, ICE has not returned the documents, leaving her unable to work or travel without fear of arrest.

Khadija (also referred to by the pseudonym Abina), a bisexual woman from Ghana, fled her country fearing for her life after she and her family were persecuted because of her sexual orientation. She crossed the U.S. border in December 2024 to seek asylum and was detained at the Eloy detention center in Arizona. Denied eligibility for asylum only because of the "circumvention of lawful pathways" regulation, she proved to an immigration judge that she was a refugee and was granted withholding of removal in July 2025. Instead of releasing her, ICE continued to detain her and told her she would be sent to Cameroon — a country she had never been to and where homosexuality is also criminalized. When she requested a fear interview and refused to sign voluntary deportation papers, an ICE officer told her to "get the fuck out of my face." In January 2026 she was placed on a flight in shackles around her wrists, ankles, and waist, with stopovers in Louisiana and Senegal, and deported to Cameroon. There she lives in a crowded room with about ten other women and other third-country nationals, lacking clothing, sanitary pads, and basic hygiene products, and was told she has temporary authorization to remain for only two months. As of July 2026, she remains in limbo, afraid to go outside the building where she is housed and unable to return to Ghana, where she fears persecution.

Rey David Velasco Rodriguez was arrested by ICE agents in a Williston parking lot on December 26 after agents determined he matched a physical description of someone they were investigating. Fingerprint records showed he had been issued an expedited removal notice in September 2024 and was found unlawfully in the U.S. for a third time in over a year. Federal Magistrate Judge Kevin J. Doyle ordered his detention pending a probable cause hearing scheduled for January 12, 2026.

Ignacio Sosnava Rodriguez had lived in Texas for 22 years before ICE detained him following a traffic stop in 2025. Rodriguez filed a habeas corpus petition arguing that holding him without a bond hearing violated his Fifth Amendment right to due process. A lower court granted his petition in February using the Mathews v. Eldridge framework and released him from ICE custody. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision, denying Rodriguez's petition and ruling that immigrants in removal proceedings have no constitutional right to bond hearings regardless of length of residence in the United States.

Abdulkadir Sharif Abdi, a Somali refugee who became an addiction recovery leader, was arrested in December 2025 and transferred to Lincoln County Detention Center in North Platte, Nebraska. ICE described him as an active gang member, though community members contested this characterization. Abdi filed a habeas petition on December 9 claiming his detention was unlawful, and Judge Susan Bazis ordered his interim release on December 23 after the government did not contest the petition. Abdi was released on Christmas Eve with assistance from HOPE-Esperanza, a nonprofit serving North Platte's minority community, which helped him contact his family and book a flight home to Minneapolis.

Fatima Issela Velasquez-Antonio, a 23-year-old Honduran asylum seeker living in Wendell, North Carolina, was detained by U.S. Border Patrol agents at an HVAC construction job site in Cary/Raleigh as part of a statewide enforcement sweep called Operation Charlotte's Web that led to at least 370 arrests. A co-worker's video captured agents handcuffing her and placing her into a van. Velasquez-Antonio came to the U.S. alone at age 14 after her father was killed by a gang and her mother later died of cancer; she graduated high school, held a valid work permit, had no criminal record aside from two traffic violations, and had recently bought a home in Wendell with her boyfriend with plans to start a family. She was held overnight at the New Hanover County jail before being transferred to the Stewart Detention Center in Georgia, leaving her family without information on her whereabouts. After more than a month in custody, a federal immigration judge ruled that her detention violated a settlement agreement governing unaccompanied minors who arrived in the U.S. as children, and she was released and returned to North Carolina on December 23, 2025. Her case remains pending.

A noncitizen was detained on December 18, 2025, after having been previously released on bond or conditional parole. The government re-detained him without providing a pre-deprivation bond hearing before a neutral arbiter, as required by the Due Process Clause. He filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 challenging his immigration detention. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California found that the government violated his constitutional rights by failing to provide a pre-deprivation bond hearing before re-detaining him. The court granted his habeas petition and ordered his immediate release with the same conditions he was subject to before December 18, 2025. The court also established that if the government seeks to re-detain him in the future, it must provide at least seven days' notice and hold a pre-deprivation bond hearing before a neutral arbiter.

Yessica Rivera Sanchez, who had lived in Las Vegas for over two decades, was detained by ICE agents at Honolulu airport on December 18 as she exited a plane with her husband and daughter during a family vacation. Her daughter Jessivet Sanchez, who turned 21 in September and had just filed an I-130 family petition on her mother's behalf, now suspects that filing may have inadvertently alerted authorities to a 2004 removal order tied to a 2003 asylum application, one the family says they never received formal notice of. After being transferred through detention centers in California, Texas and Louisiana, Sanchez was deported to El Salvador in late December, where she has since spoken by phone with her family and voiced concern for her husband and daughter's wellbeing. The family has hired an immigration attorney, launched a GoFundMe to cover legal fees, and says an immigration court is now reviewing the case as they work to bring her back.

A 20-year-old from Guatemala who received legal status in 2022 under the child separation settlement was arrested by ICE agents at a gas station in December 2025. He was detained in Florida before being transferred to Louisiana. On December 18, 2025, despite ACLU lawyers emailing Department of Justice officials to contend that an existing court order should prevent his deportation, Homeland Security placed him on a flight to Guatemala.

José Gonzalez, a 53-year-old Mexican national and well-known manager at BiCE Ristorante in Palm Beach who also operates the Tacos Agave food truck, was detained by ICE on December 10 after a Florida Highway Patrol traffic stop for dark window tint while driving his nephew's truck on a supply run. Gonzalez claims he has a valid work permit and driver's license connected to an ongoing immigration or asylum case. He was transferred between multiple detention facilities before being held at Alligator Alcatraz in the Everglades. Friends and colleagues, including Table 26 owner Eddie Schmidt, described Gonzalez as someone who spent over 20 years serving the Palm Beach County restaurant community with dedication and generosity. During his 12 days in detention, Gonzalez reported cold conditions, open toilets, limited privacy, and approximately 80 people held in cramped cage-like conditions. Staff at the detention facility encouraged him to self-deport, which his 23-year-old nephew chose to do; Gonzalez refused. Community members organized vigils, rallies, and circulated petitions that gathered nearly 2,000 signatures calling for his release. U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel and Palm Beach County Commissioner Gregg Weiss organized a vigil on December 21. Gonzalez was released on December 22-23, and expressed gratitude for community support. His nephew remains detained at Krome detention facility after signing expedited removal papers.

A Mexican citizen who entered the U.S. on a B-2 visa in 2019 and overstayed was arrested during a targeted ICE raid in Los Angeles on December 8, 2025, without an arrest warrant. He was detained and received a bond hearing on April 30, 2026, where bond was denied. The federal court granted his habeas corpus petition, finding the arrest violated 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a) requirements and ordered his immediate release, prohibiting re-detention without a pre-detention hearing before an immigration judge.

A Venezuelan citizen who entered the U.S. through CBP One and received humanitarian parole in November 2024 was arrested by ICE in December 2025. DHS terminated his parole via email in April 2025 while he was living in Denver, working lawfully, and complying with parole conditions. The court granted a temporary restraining order preventing his removal, finding he is likely a member of a class whose parole terminations were ruled unlawful in a Massachusetts federal court case.

Elias Perez-Zuazo, a Panamanian national, was detained by ICE in December 2025 during a scheduled check-in appointment at a Chantilly, Virginia office that he had previously attended without incident. Perez-Zuazo entered the U.S. in November 2021, was processed at the southern border, and married his U.S. citizen husband Jonathan Blanco Gallegos in February 2024. They had begun applying for a green card when Perez-Zuazo was taken into custody without warning. A federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia has issued an order barring ICE from removing him from the judicial district while the court reviews the legality of his detention, which his attorney is challenging via habeas corpus petition.

Elías Pérez-Zuazo, a Panamanian national, was detained by ICE on December 10, 2024, during a scheduled appointment at an ICE office in Chantilly, Virginia, where he had checked in without incident in prior years. He and his husband, U.S. citizen Jonathan Blanco Gallegos, met in 2023 and married in Washington, D.C., on February 27, 2024; the couple had an approved I-130 family petition pending for his green card. ICE claimed a prior deportation order existed from November 2021, but his attorney contested this, questioning the legality of the detention. Pérez-Zuazo was held at Farmville Detention Center in Virginia, and a federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia barred ICE from removing him from the judicial district while reviewing a habeas corpus petition; Blanco Gallegos has described the toll of the detention, saying his life has been paused and that he has a broken heart.

Elder Chavez, an 18-year-old from Honduras who was granted Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) in September 2024, was detained by ICE in December 2024 after Alabama state police pulled him over for speeding and driving without a license. Despite presenting documentation proving his legal protected status, officers contacted ICE and took him into custody. Chavez came to the United States in 2022 at age 14 to live with his older sister Maryuri after being abandoned by his parents in infancy. A high school junior excelling in welding and carpentry classes, Chavez was transported to Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana, where he has remained detained for seven months facing deportation and unable to continue his green card application process. His English teacher Carmen Bahena, sister Maryuri, and local pastors Andy Yarnell and Beth Johnson have described him as kind, hardworking, bright, and gentle; since his detention, Chavez has missed prom, the birth of his nephew, and months of school.

U.S. Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino deployed tear gas and pepper spray against protesters in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood on October 23, 2025, during immigration enforcement operations under Operation Midway Blitz. The Department of Homeland Security claimed Bovino acted after being struck by a rock, but video evidence and witnesses contradicted this account, showing him throwing a tear gas canister into the crowd. Federal Judge Sara Ellis ordered Bovino to appear in court to answer allegations that he violated a temporary restraining order prohibiting such tactics without imminent threat. Ellis later found that Bovino had lied about the rock-throwing incident and issued a preliminary injunction against federal immigration agents for using force without warning.

Matthew Marrero and his husband Allan Dabrio Marrero attended a green card interview at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan on November 24, 2025. Allan was detained by ICE after it was discovered he had missed an immigration court hearing in December 2022 and had a deportation order against him, which neither he nor Matthew knew about. Matthew says they were told Allan could leave the facility but were then handed over to ICE agents, and he had only 30 seconds to say goodbye before they were separated. Allan has since been transferred to Delaney Hall ICE Detention Center in Newark, New Jersey.

Bryan Cuautle Romero, 29, a long-term U.S. resident married to a U.S. citizen with two U.S. citizen children, was detained at West Tennessee Detention Facility in Mason on November 21, 2025, after checking in at an ICE office. ICE invoked a mandatory detention policy for individuals without admission or inspection. Despite a subsequent Sixth Circuit Court ruling against the mandatory detention policy in May 2026, Bryan had already accepted voluntary deportation to Mexico with a final removal date of June 6, 2026. His wife Lauren plans to pursue an I-130 petition to bring him back to the United States.