Human Impact Project

Ten deportees said officers used force against them after they refused to leave a flight to Liberia, a country several said they had no connection to, according to a New York Times account. Border czar Tom Homan said he doubted the specific allegations but that they would be investigated, while DHS separately called the newspaper's account a hoax. The incident adds to scrutiny over how the government verifies deportees' citizenship or ties before third-country removal flights depart, as the administration expands deals with African nations to accept people who are not their citizens.

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.

Federal ICE agents arrived around 6 a.m. Thursday, September 3, 2025, near Stoneybrook Court and Schaffer Drive in Frederick, Maryland's Taskers Chance neighborhood, searching for a man who had fled a vehicle stop. Agents occupied the area for nearly 40 hours, prompting residents to stay inside and skip work, while observers from the Western Maryland Immigrant Rights Collective monitored the scene. On Friday night, when agents ordered the block cleared, a couple dozen residents and observers linked arms and sat down to block a doorway, chanting 'We shall not be moved.' ICE vehicles drove onto a sidewalk, nearly striking City Council Vice President Katie Nash, and agents used batons, grabbed and pushed people, and dragged protesters off a porch, injuring several, some requiring hospitalization. No arrests were made, and it did not appear anyone inside the targeted home was taken into custody. Frederick police who responded did not assist the federal agents. City Council President César Díaz and Vice President Katie Nash said observers were not violent, with Nash stating, 'It's nuts. Now people are just not leaving their houses.' Frederick Mayor Michael O'Connor, Díaz, and the county executive publicly objected to the tactics, and a local representative called for a full investigation into the agents' use of force.

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.

ICE agents surrounded and entered a factory in McCook, Illinois without a warrant, detaining two people. Video from the scene shows an agent tackling a man to the ground inside a restroom and drawing a gun. When workers inside the factory asked agents to produce a warrant, an agent reportedly yelled at them to back off before pushing people aside and removing one of the men.

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.

On September 20, 2026, immigration agents in Evanston, Illinois, mistook a U.S. citizen for a fugitive they were seeking and tried to handcuff him after he declined to show identification. The man was left bloodied, suffering injuries to his head, neck and teeth, and was taken by ambulance to St. Francis Hospital for treatment. Agents released him after determining he was not the person named in their warrant, and Evanston police are investigating the encounter.

Indi Veitia, a 47-year-old Venezuelan asylum-seeker who lives in Indianapolis with her wife and worked her way up from a warehouse job to a corporate position, was detained by ICE officers while walking to her gate at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport during a work trip. She said plain-clothes officers slammed her against the jetway wall, handcuffed her, and transported her in an unmarked vehicle before transferring her to a detention center in Lumpkin, Georgia, where she spent 21 days in a windowless dormitory with more than 60 other women sharing four toilets and showers, at times without running water or power, describing the conditions as 'inhumane.' Veitia entered the U.S. on a work visa in 2019 and later applied for asylum, holding a valid work permit and driver's license while her application had been pending since 2020. She was released on bond after friends and her employer wrote supporting letters and secured lawyers, but now wears a GPS ankle monitor and must report to the ICE field office in Indianapolis under a court order. Her attorney said asylum applicants like her are 'low-hanging fruit' for detention despite following legal processes, while DHS said a pending asylum application does not confer legal status. Veitia said, 'I have done everything that the government have asked me to do.'

Luis Hernández, a 38-year-old Nicaraguan migrant who marched in Nicaragua's 2018 pro-democracy protests, had been denied asylum but granted protection from deportation under the Convention Against Torture. He was detained at a routine immigration check-in in February and taken to a Texas tarmac on Aug. 28, where he says he was struck twice in the back and once in the knee with pepper-spray canisters and was never notified he would be sent to Africa. He told the Los Angeles Times he went days without eating or sleeping after arriving in Bangui, where he was housed in a complex monitored by armed guards.

A man was hospitalized after being Tased by an ICE agent during his arrest in Danbury during a targeted enforcement operation. City officials said ICE called 911 around 6:45 a.m. reporting the man had been Tased and needed medical attention, and a city ambulance transported him to Danbury Hospital, where he was discharged later that morning. A DHS spokesperson said the man physically resisted arrest and reached for a pocketknife, and that he was carrying a counterfeit lawful permanent resident card and fake Social Security card. Danbury Mayor Roberto Alves called the incident 'deeply concerning' and said the community deserves transparency about what occurred and why that level of force was used.

John Phillips, a U.S. citizen and frequent traveler with TSA PreCheck, was handcuffed by ICE agents at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport while boarding a Delta flight to Las Vegas. Delta employees had directed him to board last, citing technical issues, before agents stopped him on the jetway, pinned him against the wall, and handcuffed him despite his telling them he was a citizen. Agents held him for several minutes, using facial recognition on his phone and showing him a photo of a British national who shared his name and birthdate, before confirming his identity and releasing him to board his flight. Phillips said the experience was a "big awakening" that gave him new empathy for immigrants who fear being targeted by ICE. He is seeking clarification about Delta's role in the incident, including what information the airline may have provided to ICE. DHS acknowledged the case, saying the agency takes responsibility for protecting the public and conducting operations professionally and lawfully.

A Danbury, Connecticut construction worker, identified by family as Edel Hernandez Cervantes, was tackled, kicked, and repeatedly tased by ICE agents on August 27, 2026, after he and coworkers noticed an ICE vehicle following them on their way to a job site and turned back home. Neighbors' video and a 911 call showed as many as five agents surrounding the vehicle, pinning him face-down, and shocking him with a Taser while he complained of hypertension and was reported to be convulsing. Family described him as an expert baker who once owned a bakery in Mexico known for bread made for Día de los Muertos and Three Kings Day, and who always kept the radio on and loved to sing. He was taken by ambulance to Danbury Hospital, where staff and ICE denied his family and an attorney access to him, telling them there was no record of him as a patient. Danbury Mayor Roberto Alves said he had already been transferred to ICE custody in Hartford before officials could intervene, and his whereabouts and condition remained unclear for days afterward.

Moises Velasquez, a Venezuelan asylum-seeker with a work permit and an upcoming December immigration hearing, was pulled from his car by ICE agents in Lakewood while waiting for his shift to start at a barbershop. Cellphone video shows agents smashing his car windows before dragging him out; his fiancé, who was eight months pregnant, heard his screams for help over the phone during the arrest. His attorney, Bart Klein, said ICE had been searching for a Mexican national but arrested Velasquez by mistake and sent him to the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma even after realizing the error. Velasquez was released after his attorney filed a habeas corpus petition and has since returned to work.

ICE conducted a multi-day enforcement operation in Danbury, Connecticut, with the mayor estimating about 50 people detained by Wednesday, not including further arrests on Thursday. Surveillance video from a security camera near Kennedy Park, at a business owned by Maria Rivera, captured agents throwing, kicking, and kneeling on a man's head as he was arrested outside a local Botanica store. The area had previously drawn up to 200 day laborers each morning, but immigrants and residents now avoid it, and nearby business owners reported fear and declining customer traffic. Agents were also seen waiting near school bus stops and outside a daycare center. A local blogger documenting the activity said agents grabbed day laborers off the street without warrants. Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said ICE had not explained why it was operating in Danbury and that he was exploring legal options to hold the administration accountable, while DHS confirmed the enforcement activity but declined to provide further details, citing operational security.

Two men were detained by ICE agents in a Home Depot parking lot in Tacoma, Washington, after officers broke the window of their car. A bystander, Lance Braunwart, told N+ Univision that when he tried to record the license plates of the agents' vehicles, one agent appeared to try to hit him with the car even though there was enough room to leave. Braunwart said he and another couple stayed at the scene, located the wife of one of the detained men, and helped bring the men's truck and construction materials to her home. According to Braunwart, the two men had only gone to the Home Depot to pick up the last materials for a job they were completing.

Brandon Domena, a lifelong Passaic County, New Jersey resident and U.S. citizen, was detained by ICE agents for about five hours after a confrontation broke out while he and his family watched agents arrest a neighbor, reportedly a Mexican man wanted for domestic violence. Video showed agents in tactical gear restraining Domena face-down on a lawn and handcuffing him, with a witness saying his arm was nearly dislocated; he says he was left with bruises and marks on his hands. Domena said he repeatedly told agents he was a U.S. citizen, believes he was racially profiled, and was denied water, a restroom, medical attention and a phone call during his detention. DHS alleges he spit at and kicked an officer and was arrested on potential charges of assaulting, resisting or impeding federal officers, but he has not been criminally charged. He disputes DHS's account, says an agent later apologized to him, was released the same day, and has hired a lawyer.

Daniel, an 18-year-old, was arrested by ICE officers while sitting as a passenger in a parked car outside a 7-Eleven convenience store in Colorado. Officers pulled a weapon, smashed the car window, and beat him, leaving him with a broken wrist, a laceration to his hand, multiple cuts on his face and forehead, and an eye swollen shut for days. Arrest records show ICE agents did not know who Daniel was before arresting him and did not determine his flight risk. When he was taken to the hospital, ICE prevented a community member from seeing or speaking with him and denied him a phone call. The incident was cited in an ACLU of Colorado court filing detailing ICE's continued violations of a federal injunction requiring flight-risk determinations before warrantless arrests.

Two volunteers working as legal observers for Danbury Unites for Immigrants were pepper sprayed by ICE agents during an encounter on Wednesday, with one of them hospitalized afterward, according to co-founder Juan Fonseca Tapia. Tapia said an ICE vehicle struck him as agents were leaving the parking lot. The hospitalized legal observer was treated and has since returned to volunteer work, the group said.

During Operation Metro Surge, ICE agent Christian Castro was involved in a shooting, and the Department of Justice initially charged two immigrants involved in the incident. The charges against the immigrants fell apart after evidence emerged that Castro and another agent had lied about the circumstances of the shooting. Castro has since become a fugitive from Minnesota authorities, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has resisted extraditing him, while the DOJ is now considering federal charges against Castro.

A video posted online showed five ICE agents in Danbury attempting to wrestle a man's arms behind his back while he lay on the street in front of a preschool center. A masked agent pointed a canister of what appeared to be pepper spray at the man's face, warning, "You're going to get sprayed," while another agent ordered him to put his arms out. The incident occurred during a week in which ICE agents made a sharp uptick in arrests across Danbury, with local advocacy group Danbury Unites for Immigrants confirming dozens of arrests in the city.