Human Impact Project

Ali Faqirzada, a 31-year-old Afghan refugee and Bard College student, fled Afghanistan in 2021 after he and his family received death threats from the Taliban. He had been waiting since 2022 for a decision on his asylum case, and every other member of his family had already been granted asylum. On October 14, 2025, an Asylum Officer found Ali had a viable asylum claim, but the Department of Homeland Security terminated his application and placed him in expedited removal proceedings. ICE then arrested and detained him despite his having passed the initial asylum screening. He was held in detention for six months before being released and reunited with his family in New Paltz.

A Cuban national who presented himself at Miami International Airport in December 2022 seeking asylum was placed into immigration custody on October 16, 2025, after completing a criminal sentence in Pennsylvania. He had been charged and convicted of crimes in Florida, Texas, and Pennsylvania, receiving a 163-day to one-year sentence. An immigration judge ordered his removal to Ecuador on December 23, 2025, and the removal order became final on January 23, 2026. The court denied his habeas petition and temporary restraining order, finding his post-removal detention of less than six months presumptively reasonable.

ICE detained numerous asylum-seekers and migrants at the San Diego federal courthouse basement between October 9-21, 2025, after summoning them for routine check-ins. Detainees reported being held in crowded cells for up to four days in conditions they described as inadequate, including limited bedding (yoga mat-like mattresses), no privacy for bathroom use, cold temperatures, fluorescent lights kept on all night, inedible food, and lack of medical attention. Families were denied proper goodbyes, and detainees were not searchable in ICE's locator system. Some were subsequently deported or transferred to other detention facilities without proper legal proceedings.

Noor Nafea Salman, a 28-year-old lawful permanent resident and medical student at the University of Virginia, was detained by ICE on October 9, 2025, during what she believed would be a routine immigration check-in appointment. Salman, who arrived in the U.S. as a refugee from Iraq at age 17 and graduated from James Madison University, has been complying with ICE check-ins for six years prior to her detention. She is married to Khaled, a Palestinian-American U.S. citizen, and her mother and five siblings are all U.S. citizens. Since her detention at Diamondback Detention Center in Oklahoma and other facilities in Texas, Salman's health has deteriorated significantly over approximately ten months. She has been hospitalized multiple times for asthma complications, suffered a fall she believes caused a concussion, and has become extremely weak. Her husband visits weekly from 250 miles away, and her family continues to advocate for her release and access to proper medical care.

Maria Francisca Villanueva Caballero, 49, a longtime Firebaugh resident with no criminal record, was detained by ICE on October 8, 2025, while attending a scheduled USCIS appointment for her final interview to obtain permanent residency. She came to the U.S. in 2000 and settled in Firebaugh in 2001, where she worked at a packing plant, volunteered with the Catholic Church, and supported youth sports. She raised four children who became UCLA and UC Berkeley graduates pursuing careers in medicine, veterinary science, and law. On October 17, Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria and other state and local leaders held a press conference in Fresno in support of her release, where her son Omar read a letter from the siblings calling their mother "the pillar" of their family and asking ICE to use discretion to release her; a petition gathered 7,619 signatures. Caballero remains held at the California City detention facility, which opened in August 2025.

A non-citizen was initially detained by ICE on February 27, 2018, and released on bond in June 2018. On October 8, 2025, ICE re-detained him without providing notice or a pre-detention hearing. A court granted his habeas corpus petition, finding that his prior release created a constitutionally protected liberty interest that required ICE to provide a pre-detention hearing before re-detaining him. The court ordered his immediate release on the conditions he was subject to prior to October 8, 2025, and enjoined immigration authorities from re-detaining him in the future without notice and a pre-detention hearing before an immigration judge.

Alejandro Suarez, 31, a gardener who has lived in the U.S. since age 11, was detained by ICE on October 7, 2025, following a routine USCIS appointment regarding his permanent residency at the Fresno office. Suarez had an approved I-130 petition and had kept his immigration paperwork current as advised by his attorney. He was escorted out through a back entrance and transferred to Golden State Annex detention center. Suarez's wife, Elida Herrera, 27, was recovering from a C-section and caring for their five children, including a newborn daughter and a son with autism. Suarez described harsh detention conditions including poor food and uncomfortable bedding. Between early October and mid-October 2025, ICE agents detained multiple immigrants attending USCIS permanent residency appointments at the Fresno office, many of whom were long-term residents married to U.S. citizens or military veterans with no criminal records.

Jorge, an Ecuadorian national living in Queens, was arrested by ICE agents at 26 Federal Plaza while attending a required check-in, with his pregnant wife Jessica waiting outside. He was deported to Ecuador before meeting his newborn daughter, Maite Cristina, who was born shortly after his arrest. Jorge had fled Ecuador after his brother was killed by gang members and was in the process of resolving his immigration status after marrying Jessica, a U.S. citizen, wearing an ankle monitor at the time of his detention. Jessica, an elder care worker, has since struggled financially and emotionally, losing the family's apartment to eviction and caring alone for Maite, her 9-year-old son Dylan, and Jorge's children from a prior relationship. Friends pooled money so Jessica and the children could travel to Ecuador to meet Jorge in person, while the family awaits approval of an I-130 petition that attorneys say could take years to resolve.

Saúl Zermeño, a 45-year-old with deferred action status who had lived in the U.S. for 36 years, was deported to Mexico on October 3 after attending a routine ICE check-in appointment. He had been the sole caregiver for his 15-year-old U.S. citizen son, Damian, a 10th grader with autism, ADHD, neurofibromatosis Type 1, epilepsy, and one kidney, since the boy's mother chose not to be involved in his life. Damian learned of his father's deportation from an aunt after returning home from school and said he initially didn't believe it, retreating to his room and losing his appetite. Since then, Damian, who doesn't drive and has limited cooking skills, has had to navigate daily life largely alone, experiencing depression, anxiety, academic decline, and withdrawal from activities.

LT, a 30-year-old Haitian asylum seeker, was detained at Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas, 1,500 miles from her 13-month-old daughter in Florida. Her baby, who is allergic to formula and has food sensitivities, vomited constantly and needed breastmilk. The government denied her petition to pump and mail breastmilk, denied bringing the child into detention, and refused bond. LT fled political violence in Haiti where supporters of an opposing party burned her house, kidnapped and raped her. She fears her daughter will end up in foster care.

Oscar Polanco was detained at a biometrics appointment in October and deported to Guatemala, a country he had not lived in for 20 years. His wife Geraldine, a dentist from Peru who sought asylum after robberies at her practice, witnessed his arrest; Oscar had filed paperwork to be included in her asylum case. The couple, who met at a church in West Adams and married in 2023, were separated for nearly three months before reuniting in Peru. They now plan to relocate together and rebuild their lives in Guatemala.

Rey, a Cuban in his mid-fifties who arrived in the U.S. in 1994 and had been authorized to remain in the country due to Cuba's non-cooperation with deportation, was arrested at an ISAP (Intensive Supervision Appearance Program) check-in in El Paso in October 2025. Rey had built a life in El Paso as a truck driver and small business owner, opening a Cuban pizzeria, nightclub, and trash-collection and furniture-restoration businesses. He was married to Sara, a U.S. citizen and Texas state employee, and was a father figure to her son. After his arrest at the ISAP office, he was transferred to Camp East Montana, where he spent six weeks in the facility's deteriorating conditions.

Alberto, a 59-year-old surgical technician who fled to the U.S. in 1990 by running across the border from Tijuana to San Ysidro while his wife and two young sons crossed hidden in a car, later served as a confidential informant for federal immigration agents in the 1990s, collecting names of undocumented farmworkers in exchange for a temporary work permit and a promise of future legal status. After 36 years in Fresno — working first as a hospital janitor, then as a surgical technician, and eventually buying a home — he was arrested in October 2025 during a scheduled green card interview at a USCIS field office when ICE agents entered the room. Released after four days following a successful habeas petition, he was re-arrested at a subsequent ICE check-in appointment in November and detained for nearly four months at Golden State Annex detention center near Bakersfield before being released on bond in February with an ankle monitor.

Xiomara Suarez-Marin, a 29-year-old Peruvian national seeking asylum, was detained by ICE during a scheduled USCIS appointment in Los Angeles on September 26, despite having a pending green card application through her wife. She had entered the U.S. in 2022 under humanitarian parole and had complied with all previous ICE check-ins. She remains in federal custody at Adelanto Detention Center with an immigration court hearing scheduled for January 28.

Ayman Soliman, an Egyptian-born imam and hospital chaplain at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, was detained by ICE on July 9, 2025, during a routine immigration check-in appointment after USCIS terminated his asylum status. Authorities alleged he provided material support to terrorists through involvement with an Egyptian charity organization. During approximately 10 weeks in custody at Butler County Jail, Soliman was held in freezing conditions, placed in isolation, and denied access to his attorney. The Department of Homeland Security subsequently withdrew its deportation case after court filings documented errors and inconsistencies in the government's evidence. Soliman was released in mid-to-late September 2025, his asylum status was reinstated, and his green card application was revived.

Vicente (a pseudonym), a 60-year-old Cuban baseball coach who trained players who went on to the professional ranks, left Cuba for Venezuela in 2009, where he met his wife and raised his children. After receiving threats from Cuba's Interior Ministry investigators, who called him "a traitor" and warned his family would "pay the price," he crossed the Darién Gap and the Rio Grande in 2023, hoping to build a better future for his nine-year-old son. After months in detention at Port Isabel and the Geauga County Safety Center, he was released and reunited with his wife and son in Ontario, California, on Christmas Day 2023. He never missed an ICE check-in while working with a lawyer toward legal residency. Around August 2025, at what he believed was a routine check-in, an agent led him to a separate room where four officers handcuffed his hands, legs, and feet. "It was all a lie. A set-up," he said. He was held in an overcrowded Los Angeles basement holding room with more than 80 people, bused to Arizona and then to Camp East Montana in El Paso, and deported to Villahermosa, Mexico, in August 2025. He now lives in a 15-square-meter concrete-block house, volunteers coaching a youth baseball team, and has built an incubator to raise Japanese quail. "There's nothing I've done that justifies why I was separated from my family," he said. Last Christmas his family sent him a photo of the stockings on their fireplace in Ontario, including one embroidered with his name.

Harjit Kaur, a 73-year-old Sikh grandmother who had lived legally in the East Bay for over 30 years with no criminal record, was detained by ICE on September 8, 2025, after being asked to turn in paperwork at the San Francisco office during a routine check-in. Kaur had lived in Hercules, worked for two decades at Sari Palace in Berkeley, and regularly attended the El Sobrante Sikh Gurdwara; she has two grandsons and three granddaughters. Family members and roughly 200 community members held a protest at the El Sobrante Gurdwara demanding her release, with her daughter-in-law Manji Kaur calling the situation 'a total nightmare.' During her 15-day detention at facilities in Bakersfield and Georgia, Kaur reported being denied basic hygiene supplies, vegetarian meals consistent with her faith, and water for her medication, and was forced to sleep on cell floors. Despite her attorney's requests for release with monitoring or accompaniment on a commercial flight due to her age and medical conditions, Kaur was deported to India on September 22 without advance notice to her family and without being allowed to return home or say goodbye.

Martin Hernandez-Torres, a noncitizen who has lived in the United States for 30 years and has cancer, was arrested Wednesday during a "reasonable fear" interview at the ICE field office at 630 Sansome Street in San Francisco. He was held in harsh conditions including small, cold rooms with no beds, forced to sleep on metal benches or the floor with only thin plastic or foil as blankets, bright lights kept on all night causing sleep deprivation, open toilets, limited hygiene supplies, and restricted access to counsel and medical care. He was held for extended periods—sometimes up to six days—despite the holding cells being designed for stays under 12 hours. The ACLU, alongside the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights and CARECEN, filed a class-action lawsuit on September 18, 2025, on behalf of Hernandez-Torres and three other asylum-seeker plaintiffs, challenging ICE's detention practices and courthouse arrest policies and alleging unconstitutional conditions and violations of due-process protections.

Alan Phetsadakone, who arrived in the United States as a toddler, was detained by ICE during a routine check-in in Tukwila, Washington in July 2025 and released in September following an order by US authorities. As deportation flights to Laos resume for the first time in years under a new immigration enforcement effort, Phetsadakone now faces renewed threat of deportation despite decades of residency in the country.

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.