Human Impact Project

Esteban Rios Sosa and his wife, Luisa Rodriguez, were first stopped at a Camp Pendleton gate in September 2025 while trying to visit their pregnant daughter, who is married to a Marine, with their son Steve Rios, also a Marine. They were briefly detained, fitted with ankle monitors and told to check in with ICE weeks later; when they returned to the federal building in San Diego, agents detained them again, deporting Rios Sosa to Mexico within a day while Rodriguez was sent to Otay Mesa Detention Center. Both held pending U visa applications that USCIS had deemed bona fide, along with deferred action and work permits, though the agency said annual visa caps delayed approval; Rodriguez was released after about three weeks once an immigration judge recognized her deferred status. During nearly a year in Mexico, Rios Sosa said he feared being kidnapped and struggled with depression, while attorney Monika Langarica of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law filed suit in July arguing his due process rights were violated. U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino agreed, ruling he was deported without notice or a hearing and ordering his immediate return; he crossed back into the U.S. at the San Ysidro Port of Entry to reunite with his family, return to his job cleaning cars, and meet his new grandchild.

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.

Anthony, a Zimbabwean man in his forties, was detained by ICE last year after crossing the US-Mexico border following a long and dangerous journey through Central America. He was subsequently deported to Cameroon, a country with which he has no ties, and now spends much of his time reading the Bible for comfort while facing uncertainty about his future.

Peter, a 51-year-old Kenyan man and country music fan whose son serves in the US Navy, lived in Dallas, Texas for 25 years before being deported to Cameroon, only learning his destination midway through the flight. After arriving, he contracted malaria and spent three days in the hospital on respiratory support. He has since had an interview with the UN refugee agency, which could grant him refugee status, though Cameroon may still decline to accept the outcome.

Ayana, 40, was born in a refugee camp in Sudan to an Eritrean mother and Ethiopian father and lived legally in the United States since she was two years old, building a life in San Diego where she studied business and worked as a nursing assistant and mother. ICE agents detained her while she was renewing her residence permit, and she was flown to Cameroon in shackles, a country with which she has no personal ties or documentation. She said a US judge had found her fear of returning to her family's home countries credible, but she was nonetheless removed to Cameroon under the Trump administration's third-country deportation policy, and now lives in fear and uncertainty in Yaounde with limited support.

Kenis Alberto López (also reported as Adalberto López), a 44-year-old Nicaraguan man held in U.S. immigration detention for about eight months, was deported to the Central African Republic on a flight departing Aug. 28-29 from Texas. He alleges ICE agents shot him with rubber or pepper-ball projectiles, injuring him, then bound, hooded, and dragged him before tying him to a stretcher to force him onto the plane, restraining him for roughly 24 hours. He told the Los Angeles Times he pleaded with agents, saying, 'I'd rather die here than in Africa.' The flight carried around 100 deportees, including migrants from Iran, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, with López traveling alongside fellow Nicaraguans Luis Carlos Mendoza Santamaría and Isaac Cruz. López says he has no criminal record, had received a deportation stay in 2024, and cannot return to Nicaragua due to danger there, though DHS says he re-entered the U.S. illegally in 2022 and was later released under the Biden administration. He and the other Nicaraguan men are now confined under police custody in a housing complex in Bangui with roughly 40 other migrants, facing mobility restrictions and limited access to water and electricity. ICE has not responded to the mistreatment allegations.

ICE officers detained a mother and father near John Marshall Elementary School in San Diego's Chollas Creek neighborhood shortly after morning drop-off. Witnesses say officers boxed in the couple's Toyota Prius at an intersection, prompting the pair to flee on foot into a nearby house under construction, where the woman pleaded with workers for help, saying her daughter attends the school. A construction worker said the ICE officer unholstered his gun and drew pepper spray after the crew tried to intervene. San Diego Unified confirmed the parents' 2- and 5-year-old children attend a school program and were picked up by a family friend after both parents were taken into ICE custody.

Natalie Holmes, 51, a Jamaican national and ordained pastor, says she was deported to Equatorial Guinea in June while her habeas corpus petition challenging her removal was still pending. She remains among 29 men and women held indefinitely at the decommissioned Hotel Bamy in Malabo, where deportees say they have been dragged from their rooms at gunpoint, handcuffed, assaulted and threatened by armed guards. Witnesses and Amnesty International report that two men at the hotel were recently hooded, bound, beaten with guns and shoved down stairs by police, allegedly to stop them from exposing deteriorating conditions. American judges had ruled that most of those held, including Holmes, could not be deported to their home countries due to risk of torture or persecution, yet Equatorial Guinea has granted them no legal status, documents, medical care or legal assistance.

Paola dos Santos, a Brazilian woman, told The New York Times she had been detained in the United States for 15 months before being deported to Liberia in August.

Peta-Gaye Chambers, 35, who came to the United States from Jamaica as a child, had been granted 'withholding of removal' by a U.S. immigration judge in 2013 after he found she would face persecution in Jamaica. Despite that protection, ICE deported her to Equatorial Guinea in June without notice. Chambers says she and other deportees were dragged from their rooms at gunpoint, handcuffed, assaulted and threatened by armed guards at the decommissioned Hotel Bamy in Malabo, where she remains held.

Alberto Ramirez-Diaz, a 39-year-old man from Guatemala, was arrested by ICE on September 1 immediately after his release from the Tennessee Department of Corrections, where he had served a sentence for second-degree child rape. He was removed from the United States on September 7, 2026, and returned to Guatemala. Ramirez-Diaz had previously been deported in 2013 before reentering the country, and was detained again in March 2018, when he received a notice to appear before an immigration judge and was released under an order of recognizance. He was later enrolled in ICE's Alternatives to Detention program but allegedly cut off his GPS ankle monitor, and was rearrested in Homestead, Florida, in November 2019 in connection with sexual assault allegations involving a minor relative.

Fernando Armando Valdes Perez, a 61-year-old man holding Cuban and Guatemalan citizenship who lived in Kendall, Florida, was arrested at Miami International Airport on July 10, 2026, during a joint operation involving ICE, the FBI, and CBP. Investigators alleged Valdes had been a Cuban intelligence asset since the mid-1990s, using his position to infiltrate Cuban exile and dissident communities while concealing his affiliation with the Cuban government. Authorities said he fraudulently obtained lawful permanent resident status by hiding these ties. He was placed in removal proceedings and deported from the United States on August 7, 2026.

Molis Augustave, a Haitian immigrant pastor and DoorDash driver in York, Pennsylvania, was pulled over on September 4, 2026 for a burned-out headlight and expired registration, then handed to ICE under a local 287(g) agreement. He entered the U.S. legally in 2016 but lost Temporary Protected Status after the Trump administration ended TPS for Haitians in July 2026, despite having a pending green card application through his U.S. citizen wife, Omara Nunez, with whom he has two young children. He was transferred to a Louisiana ICE facility and moved toward a deportation flight to Haiti, but was pulled off the plane at the last minute after advocacy from his wife, church, and organizations including We Are CASA and the Haitian Bridge Alliance; 89 others on that flight were deported. Augustave says he was handled roughly during his initial detention, leaving him with ongoing neck and back pain, but has since become a source of support for other detainees, leading Bible study and counseling men who are frightened or losing hope. His wife filed a habeas corpus petition in federal court and an appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals, while local pastors and state Sen. Patty Kim held a news conference calling for his release.

Oscar Sanchez-Corona, a 36-year-old construction worker who was brought to the U.S. as an infant and grew up attending Shawnee Mission schools, was detained by ICE agents on August 18 while pouring concrete at a job site in Lawrence, Kansas, shackled in front of coworkers. Over 18 days he was transferred through Leavenworth's Midwest Regional Reception Center, Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana, and a facility in El Paso, Texas, describing leaking ceilings, understaffed units, inadequate food, denial of contact lens solution, and witnessing other detainees struggle to get insulin; he said he lost eight pounds. He was ultimately deported on foot into Juarez, Mexico, separating him from the two elementary school-aged children he shares custody of in Johnson County. DHS cited reinstatement of a prior removal order tied to a teenage misdemeanor property-damage charge, a 2013 deportation after failing to comply with a voluntary departure order, illegal re-entry, and convictions for drug paraphernalia possession, criminal property damage, and driving without a license. A family friend, Skylar Roush, described him as 'a regular American guy' who lived a peaceful life as a worker and father, and his daughter drew a picture asking ICE not to take him away.

Since the US ended Temporary Protected Status for Haitians in late July 2026, more than 450 people have been deported to Haiti, with flights to Cap-Haïtien increasing from about once a month to once a week because the Port-au-Prince airport remains unsafe. Human Rights Watch interviewed 44 deportees after the August 20 and 27 flights and found Haitian authorities lack the funding, staff, and policies to safely receive and assist returnees amid a surge in criminal violence and hunger. Many deportees had lived in the US for years, were separated from US citizen family members, or had pending asylum claims. The US Senate is considering House-approved legislation to reinstate TPS for Haitians as litigation over the termination continues.

Leonardo Sánchez, a 49-year-old Cuban national and lawful permanent resident who arrived in the U.S. in 2010 under the Cuban Adjustment Act and worked as a welder, was deported to Liberia and then Equatorial Guinea after ICE detained him at a gas station. Sánchez suffers from a severe abdominal hernia caused by a stabbing that once left him in a coma for 40 days, and had reconstructive surgery scheduled at Jackson Memorial Hospital before his removal. He said agents refused to remove his shackles or let him use the bathroom during the 14-hour flight, and when he refused to disembark in Liberia out of fear of being abandoned, agents allegedly threw him down the aircraft steps and knelt on his exposed hernia. In Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, doctors refused to treat him without documents, leaving him only paracetamol for pain, and he is now held with five other deportees at a former hotel under armed guard, unable to contact family. His mother and sister in Florida say a lawyer they hired to help him was a scam, and Equatorial Guinea has no asylum framework, leaving him facing indefinite detention or return to Cuba. DHS said Sánchez was ordered removed following a cocaine possession conviction and denied mistreating him.

Luis Ivan Campos was detained by ICE while driving to work and subsequently deported on September 3rd, according to his son Christian Campos. He was not pulled over for a traffic violation or detained by local law enforcement before being taken into ICE custody. Campos was the primary caregiver for two of his children with disabilities: a 17-year-old with severe Hemophilia Type A who uses a wheelchair and was recently hospitalized, and a 4-year-old with Down syndrome who also has severe Hemophilia Type A. His family, including his wife Karina, started a fundraiser to help cover expenses and support the children following his deportation.

Vic Bud, who has lived in the United States since 1987, is being held in ICE custody at the Northlake Detention Center under a final deportation order to Romania. He is married to a U.S. citizen and has five U.S. citizen children, ages 2 to 14, who depend on him as the family's sole breadwinner. His wife launched a fundraiser to cover rent, daily expenses, and relocation costs as the family prepares to move to Romania to stay together.

More than 60 federal agents raided the Nutrition Bar Confectioners plant in Cato, New York in September 2025, herding roughly 160 workers into a breakroom and arresting 57 of about 100 people questioned, including pregnant women and mothers of young children. Body camera footage later released in a lawsuit showed agents breaking down a locked bathroom stall door to remove a female employee and separating workers by citizenship status, with some told they would be arrested if they asked for an attorney. Argentina Juarez-Lopez, 50, invoked her right to counsel, but an agent falsely claimed she confessed without one; a federal judge called the conduct 'grossly negligent' and suppressed the evidence, yet she was deported after her case was dismissed. Juana Castillo Avelar, a mother of three U.S. citizen children who had lived in the U.S. over 20 years, was granted $9,000 bond but was deported before ICE would release her, based on a false claim she had appealed. Only five of the 57 arrested faced criminal charges, mostly for illegal reentry, and no charges have been filed against the company. The New York Civil Liberties Union and the Worker Justice Center of New York filed a lawsuit alleging officers lacked arrest warrants, exceeded search warrant authority, and violated workers' Fourth Amendment rights; one deported plaintiff has since been allowed to reenter the country while attorneys for another seek his return.

Sean Lopes, a Guyana native, was serving a 14- to 16-year state prison sentence and was not eligible for parole until next February. ICE allowed him to skip the final six months of his sentence so he could be deported. His case was highlighted by ICE's Buffalo office as part of a broader trend of the agency removing people from state custody before their sentences conclude.