Human Impact Project

Monsy Hernández, a DACA recipient who arrived in South Carolina as a child, self-deported at age 19 in 2017 after her mother was detained by ICE. Now living in Germany, she founded Onward, an organization supporting undocumented immigrants considering voluntary departure. The organization's membership increased during Trump administration deportation efforts.

ICE agents conducted a search warrant operation on February 2, 2026, at a residential property in the 600 block of North Rural Drive in Monterey Park, California, approximately 0.1 miles from Mark Keppel High School. Multiple migrants were taken into custody, with the operation occurring early in the morning. The Monterey Park city government confirmed the federal enforcement action but noted that local police did not participate, consistent with California state law and local policy prohibiting municipal involvement in immigration enforcement.

Leyla Navarrete, a Nicaraguan asylum seeker who has lived in Indiana for about three years and holds a work permit and Social Security number, was detained by ICE on August 7, 2025, during a scheduled check-in in Indianapolis, which triggered an expedited removal order. After a credible-fear interview found no credible fear and an immigration judge ruled he lacked jurisdiction over her bond request—though he said he would have set it at the lowest statutory amount—she remained held at the Grayson County Detention Center while eight months pregnant. On November 26, 2025, a federal judge in the Western District of Kentucky granted her habeas corpus petition, rejected the government's jurisdictional objections, and ordered her immediate release.

Cesar was arrested by ICE on August 3, 2025, after 9 years in the U.S. and transferred to Imperial Detention Center. He had previously been arrested by ICE around 2019 and released on parole under an order of supervision. ICE has now moved to enforce a previous removal order. His wife and two daughters (ages 16 and 6), one of whom has cerebral palsy requiring specialized medical care, are left without his income and struggling to afford rent, groceries, and medical expenses.

In New Mexico, a father was en route to a school event when his vehicle was surrounded by agents in a supermarket parking lot. Agents smashed his window with a sledgehammer. His partner and two young girls slipped out the passenger side as an armed agent hovered beside the car. ICE, which was assisted by the San Juan County Sheriff's Office, claimed that when officers first tried to stop Jorge Martín Ortiz-Rosalez's vehicle earlier that day, he fled at high speed.

In the San Diego area, a mother was arrested by federal agents outside an elementary school as students arrived. Her two children were in the car with her. The school district confirmed the children were students at the school.

Daysi Munoz and her husband were arrested by Burleson, Texas police on suspicion of shoplifting while back-to-school shopping at a Walmart in August 2025, leading to their transfer into ICE custody and deportation to Honduras about 40 days later. Their two U.S. citizen daughters, 19-year-old Dulce Zepeda and 13-year-old Maria, were left on their own in Fort Worth, with Dulce cooking, driving her sister to school, working at McDonald's, and selling her mother's jewelry to cover bills. After nearly a year living alone, the emotional and financial strain became overwhelming, and Dulce sold their parents' truck to help Maria return to Honduras to reunite with their parents, while Dulce has remained in Texas.

Benjamin, 16, and his brother Dennis were stopped by Buffalo police in August 2025 during a traffic stop; DHS agents then arrested both brothers despite their possession of Special Immigrant Juvenile Status and Deferred Action protections from deportation. ICE officers questioned them, told them the U.S. would pay $2,000 for self-deportation, and presented them with English-language papers without explanation; Benjamin signed, believing he had no choice. Dennis, who had just turned 18, was deported to Ecuador while Benjamin was transported to a shelter in Texas, then moved to a shelter in Groton, Connecticut, where he spent two months unable to understand why he was being held despite having been previously vetted and approved for release to his father. Benjamin wrote that he felt "trapped" and "like a delinquent," confined to three rooms with no outdoor access without staff supervision. He was released 143 days after his arrest, four days after lawyers filed a lawsuit challenging his detention.

In August 2025, a 6-year-old New York City public school student and her mother, an Ecuadorian family who had sought asylum, were deported after being detained during an ICE check-in on August 12 and removed on August 19. The family's asylum application had been denied with a deportation order issued in June 2024. The student's older sibling, age 16, remains in the United States. New York officials, including Gov. Kathy Hochul, condemned the deportation.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers conducted an unannounced raid at a home in North Charleston, South Carolina on July 30, arresting Franklin Arce. Ring camera footage shows an ICE agent pulling a gun on Arce's partner Celeste Hernandez and shoving her back into the house while Arce was being arrested. Arce's family claims the officers never showed a warrant or provided their names and badge numbers, and Hernandez stated Arce was working toward legal citizenship with a court hearing scheduled.

K.N., a minor U.S. citizen, was arrested along with his sisters while approaching a construction site raid. Federal agents drove K.N. to his mother's home and held him outside the fence while asking him if his mother was "illegal," then threatened to take him into federal custody while demanding his mother produce identification. According to MALDEF's Federal Tort Claims Act claim, agents used K.N. as "bait" in an attempt to lure his mother, a lawful permanent resident, into the street to investigate her immigration status. MALDEF seeks $2.5 million in damages for personal injury and emotional distress.

A Human Rights Watch report released on July 21, 2025, documents severe conditions at three Florida immigration detention facilities—Krome North Service Processing Center, Broward Transitional Center, and Federal Detention Center Miami—between January and June 2025. The report profiles 11 detained immigrants and includes interviews with family members and lawyers. Detainees experienced overcrowding (Krome reached 249% capacity by March), denial of critical medications including insulin and inhalers, forced sleep on cold concrete floors, degrading treatment including forced eating without hands, and excessive force including stun grenade deployment during protests. Substandard medical care is alleged to have been linked to two deaths. The detention population surge followed Trump administration executive orders establishing prolonged detention policies, with overall U.S. immigration detention reaching 56,000 people daily by June 2025, the highest level in U.S. history.

A family facing ICE enforcement operations decided to self-deport but were unable to bring their 6-year-old German Shepherd, Draco, on their flight due to airline size restrictions. The family surrendered the dog they had raised for over five years to the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control. Pet surrenders from families affected by recent immigration enforcement operations have occurred in Southern California.

An 18-year-old Key West High School senior and wrestler was detained by immigration agents on December 2 while driving his mother's car to school and was held at the Everglades detention facility before being deported to Honduras within a week. He is now staying with his grandparents near San Pedro Sula, a place he left with his mother at age 6, and says he hopes to return to the life they built together. His mother says he had been in the process of adjusting his legal status through a petition filed by her husband, a U.S. citizen, and friends and community members have raised funds to pay for an attorney to review his case.

Juana McIntosh, a Guatemalan national and spouse of a U.S. Air Force member, was detained by ICE during a green card interview appointment at a USCIS office in Atlanta while her husband was deployed overseas. She had been granted Parole in Place as a military spouse and was in the process of adjusting her status when she was taken into custody based on a previous removal order from 2012.

Jonathan Jarquín, a 17-year-old, was detained by ICE on July 12 while on his way to church with another minor, Emely Suaza. Suaza was released to her father, but Jarquín's mother says she has been unable to locate her son since. She says she only receives vague text messages about sponsorship from an unknown number, and that the attorney she hired has stopped responding despite being paid. She said she is afraid to come forward publicly to search for him out of fear she could be detained herself, and added she would rather have her son sent back to his home country than remain in uncertainty about his detention.

Federal ICE agents raided Glass House Farms facilities in Camarillo and Carpinteria, California on July 10-11, detaining 361 adults and 14 minors. Hundreds of community members and family members of farmworkers gathered to protest, throwing rocks at enforcement vehicles while agents deployed tear gas, smoke bombs and pepper bullets, injuring protesters including at least one city council member. Workers inside the facility, fearing separation from their families, hid in underground water tanks and on rooftops during the raid. A 56-year-old farmworker died after falling 30 feet from a greenhouse roof, and the FBI opened a search for a man reported to have fired a gun at the scene. Judith Ramos, a 22-year-old certified nurse assistant, was sprayed with tear gas when she arrived to support her father, a detained farmworker. Rep. Salud Carbajal was denied entry while attempting congressional oversight, and National Guard troops in military vehicles also responded. Three men—farm worker Santiago, security guard and Iraq veteran George Retes, and professor John Caravello—were arrested during the operation.

According to a social media post, Border Patrol allegedly illegally arrested a U.S. citizen. The family reportedly does not know the whereabouts of the arrested individual. The incident was shared on Instagram with a video documenting the situation.

Jackie Merlos, an undocumented immigrant mother from Honduras with a pending U-visa, was detained by CBP agents on June 28, 2025, at Peace Arch Park near the U.S.-Canada border during a family picnic. Merlos, a well-regarded local business owner who had lived in Portland, Oregon for decades, was held in a CBP facility for 12 days. An ICE agent then called Merlos' friend Mimi Lettunich, demanding she immediately pick up Merlos' four U.S. citizen children—9-year-old triplets and a 7-year-old—or they would be placed in foster care. Lettunich, who had not cared for young children in years and had a full-time job, took the children into her home. Federal authorities attempted to deport Merlos without proper documentation or due process, but a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking the children's removal. As of July 2025, Merlos remained in ICE custody at a facility in Tacoma, Washington, separated from her children and facing formal removal proceedings.

NBC6 reviewed dozens of 911 calls made from April through June 2025 from family members and employees at Krome Detention Center requesting medical assistance for detainees. The calls document cases of unresponsive detainees, chest pains, blood coughing, and other serious health conditions where facility staff allegedly did not provide adequate medical response. A recent report found detainees were held beyond the 12-hour limit and some did not receive required medical and mental health screenings upon arrival.