Human Impact Project

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.

Alejandro Orrego Agudelo, a 27-year-old Colombian asylum seeker, was arrested by Boston police on November 21 after a dispute over a parking space on Falcon Street in East Boston. He was charged with assault and battery on a police officer and released by a judge that same day at East Boston District Court. However, ICE agents arrested him in the courthouse lockup and detained him for four months at Plymouth County jail under the Laken Riley Act. After legal challenges including a habeas corpus petition and dismissal of criminal charges, an immigration judge granted him bond, and he was released.

ICE agents detained a 16-year-old high school intern at the Licht Judicial Complex in Providence on November 20, 2025, after misidentifying the teenager as their target. Superior Court Judge Joseph J. McBurney intervened, and agents verified their information and released the intern. Governor Dan McKee and Lieutenant Governor Sabina Matos issued statements regarding the incident.

Gladys Tentes-Pitiur, an Indigenous Shuar woman from Ecuador, was detained by ICE for 135 days at Richwood Correctional Center in Louisiana after being arrested outside a courthouse in New Haven on July 7, 2025. She had fled Ecuador due to persecution and traveled through seven countries with her two young sons, surviving cartel kidnapping in Mexico before arriving in New Haven in November 2023. After an immigration judge granted her asylum on October 17, 2025, citing violence she had fled since age 15, she was released on November 19 and reunited with her sons, ages 6 and 7, outside their Fair Haven school the day before Thanksgiving. Her lawyer, Brenda Wylie, said the case was the only successful asylum grant her office achieved in 2025, and Tentes-Pitiur recalled her younger son initially refusing to believe she would not be taken away again.

A man appeared in court in Lebanon, Tennessee for a routine traffic violation when ICE agents in plain clothes detained him without showing identification. His U.S. citizen daughter intervened and was injured in the process. The man was taken away in a white van, and his family reports lacking clear answers about his whereabouts or status. Five people were detained by ICE after appearing in Robertson County General Sessions Court on November 19 to answer summons for misdemeanor traffic violations. All five had pleaded guilty to traffic offenses and paid their fines before being escorted to a private room and subsequently removed from the courthouse in handcuffs and leg shackles by masked ICE agents. The detainees, including Yanim Lopez and Aurora Leao, both originally from Mexico, were transferred to detention facilities in Knoxville and later Louisiana. ICE arrested 6,251 people in Tennessee between January 20 and October 15, 2025, with arrest rates rising throughout the year. Attorneys report that immigrants following legal requirements—including routine ICE check-ins—are now being detained and deported, a shift from previous practice. The article documents cases where immigrants with no criminal records are detained at check-ins, judges in some counties are contacting ICE, and immigration holds prevent bonded release, leaving immigrants in jail for months before court appearances.

Chanidaphon Sopimpa, a Thai national and wife of retired Marine Staff Sergeant Samuel Shasteen, was arrested by ICE agents during her final green card interview on November 18, 2025, and detained at Otay Mesa Detention Center. Sopimpa had overstayed her visa but the couple had been pursuing her green card through marriage to a U.S. citizen spouse, which includes a federal law exception for such cases. ICE stated the arrests were for visa overstays, but immigration attorneys note this enforcement action at green card interviews is unprecedented in recent history. Sopimpa has no criminal history and is scheduled for a bond hearing.

Britania Uriostegui Rios, a Mexican transgender woman who entered the U.S. in 2003, was deported to Mexico on November 11, 2024, despite a federal judge's March order blocking her removal based on findings that she faced a substantial risk of torture. Uriostegui Rios is a trauma survivor who was sexually trafficked by cartels as a young person and faces significant threats in Mexico due to her transgender identity. She was deported without medications, identification, money, or a cell phone and went into hiding in Tijuana. ICE and Department of Justice officials acknowledged the deportation violated the immigration judge's order and was improper. The Trump administration offered to allow her to voluntarily return to the U.S., where she would be placed back in ICE custody while the government seeks an alternative country for deportation. Her legal team filed suit to prevent her return to federal custody and to secure her release under supervision, arguing the government cannot be trusted to follow court orders.

A man detained by ICE filed an ex parte motion for a temporary restraining order in federal court seeking his immediate release from ICE detention and prohibiting ICE from re-arresting him without a pre-detention bond hearing. The defendants named in the case are Sergio Albarran (acting field office director of the San Francisco ICE office), Todd M. Lyons (acting director of ICE), Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, and Attorney General Pamela Bondi. On November 15, 2025, United States District Judge P. Casey Pitts issued an order requiring defendants to respond to the motion by 5:00pm on November 17, 2025. The court noted that he does not appear to be subject to expedited removal or deportation prior to completion of full removal proceedings.

A man who had been living in the US for 25 years with three US citizen children was arrested by ICE agents immediately after a criminal court hearing in November 2025. He had been released without conditions since 2019 following his initial NTA but was re-detained based on a misdemeanor assault plea. The court ordered his immediate release, finding his detention without a pre-detention hearing violated his procedural due process rights.

Britania Uriostegui Rios, a transgender woman, was deported by ICE from Louisiana to Mexico despite a March court order finding she would "more likely than not" face torture or death there. Her attorneys say ICE removed her "without any notice whatsoever," leaving her without medication, identification, money, or a phone, and that she was later found hiding at an unsupportive relative's home. Her lawyers have sued President Trump, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, and other officials, arguing the removal violated her due process rights and a protective order under the Convention Against Torture. Prior to her deportation, ICE had transferred her without notifying her attorneys to an all-men's prison in Louisiana, and had also sought to remove her to El Salvador.

A Haitian citizen who entered the U.S. in 2023 and was paroled was arrested in Bay Harbor Islands, Florida on April 16, 2025 for battery. After conviction on November 4, 2025, he was detained by immigration agents on November 10, 2025 and transferred to Central Valley Annex in California. The court granted his habeas petition, finding he was not subject to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2) and ordering a bond hearing within 14 days.