Human Impact Project

Hector Esteban Justo was re-detained by immigration authorities on October 15, 2025, after previously being released on bond or conditional parole. He filed a habeas corpus petition challenging his ongoing immigration detention, arguing that he was denied a constitutionally required pre-deprivation bond hearing before a neutral arbiter. The court granted his petition and ordered his immediate release with the same conditions he had prior to detention.

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.

A man entered the United States on March 31, 2023 and was encountered by immigration authorities. He was released on his own recognizance on April 3, 2023, but was re-detained by ICE on October 6, 2025. The court found that his prior release created a liberty interest and ordered his immediate release with conditions, requiring pre-detention hearings for any future detention.

Mario Guevara, an Emmy-award-winning Spanish-language journalist who lived in Atlanta for nearly 22 years with a valid work permit, was arrested on June 14, 2025, while live-streaming a 'No Kings' protest in DeKalb County, Georgia, and charged with obstruction, unlawful assembly, and improperly entering a roadway. Though a judge granted him bond, ICE placed a hold on him and he spent over 100 days in detention, including up to 22 hours daily in solitary confinement, separated from his wife and children. A federal judge questioned the legality of his detention, and the ACLU and his attorneys argued it violated his constitutional rights to free speech and due process, while the government claimed broad discretion to detain him and denied targeting him for his journalism, citing a decade-old removal order. The Bureau of Immigration Appeals ordered his removal on September 19, and he was deported to El Salvador on October 3, 2025, after which he continued working as a journalist, reporting from Central America and speaking at international press freedom conferences.

Noemi Chavez, her husband Jaime Ramirez, and their children, 8-year-old Dasha and her 3-year-old son, were detained by federal agents without a warrant during a family outing at Chicago's Millennium Park on September 28, 2025. Witnesses and video showed Dasha crying and clutching a doll as heavily armed agents in camouflage took the family away in a white van while the children played in the water at Crown Fountain. Chavez said agents targeted them based on appearance; the family came from Guatemala in 2023 seeking asylum and has a hearing scheduled for October 2027. A neighbor whose son is in Dasha's third-grade class helped bring the family supplies and stayed in contact with Chavez via WhatsApp. The National Immigrant Justice Center filed a habeas corpus petition, and a federal judge ordered Chavez and the children protected from deportation; they were released from ICE custody. Ramirez remains detained at a Texas facility, where attorneys are seeking his release or a bond hearing, arguing he poses no danger or flight risk.

A 60-year-old Mexican tamale vendor who had been selling street food in Pilsen for over a decade was detained by ICE agents when she could not provide proof of legal status. She had been supporting herself and her son while managing diabetes since her husband's death in 2023. She was released on October 22, 11 days after filing her habeas case.

Samuel Ochoa Ochoa, a Venezuelan immigrant who entered the U.S. near El Paso in October 2023, was released on his own recognizance after DHS initiated removal proceedings against him, with no later convictions or violations of his release conditions. He filed an asylum application in September 2024, but in June 2025 DHS moved to dismiss those proceedings in order to place him into expedited removal, after which he was detained by ICE for 126 days. A federal judge ordered his release in October, and his habeas corpus ruling has since been cited in 186 other immigration cases filed in the Northern District of Illinois.

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.

A father from an unnamed country who was separated from his daughter at the US-Mexico border in 2017 and reunited with his children in Florida in 2021 was detained by ICE in October 2025 at Alligator Alcatraz in the Florida Everglades and transferred to Camp East Montana in Texas. While detained, he experienced poor conditions including mouldy food with worms and witnessed a fellow detainee's death from asphyxia due to neck and torso compression. The ACLU filed a motion and he was released in April 2026, but remains subject to ankle monitoring and bi-weekly ICE check-ins.

Catalina 'Xóchitl' Santiago, a 28-year-old DACA recipient and community organizer from El Paso, was detained by Border Patrol agents on August 3, 2025, at El Paso International Airport while traveling for work with her wife, Desiree Miller, a U.S. citizen whom Santiago married earlier in 2025. Despite holding valid DACA status since 2012—renewed seven times with her current renewal expiring in April 2026—Santiago was subjected to deportation proceedings. Originally from Mexico, Santiago has lived in the U.S. since age 8. On October 1, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone ruled that Santiago's arrest and detention violated her Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights and ordered her release from the ICE El Paso Service Processing Center. Judge Cardone found that the government presented no evidence that Santiago endangered anyone during her twenty years at liberty, including her thirteen years under DACA, and failed to articulate any individualized reason for her detention. Santiago's brother Jose said the family was deeply affected by her detention and expressed relief at her release.

A federal judge ordered the immediate release of Paulo Cesar Gamez Lira, a 27-year-old DACA recipient and father of four U.S. citizen children who was detained by ICE for 42 days. Gamez Lira was detained on August 13 when federal agents surrounded his vehicle in Horizon City, Texas, with two of his young children present. He was held at the Otero County Processing Center in Chaparral, New Mexico, separated from his family including a three-month-old infant with serious medical conditions. The federal government declined to oppose his release.

Felipe de Jesus Hernandez Marcelo, a 28-year-old single father from Mexico who works construction in Muscatine, Iowa, was shot twice during an attempted robbery on June 21, 2025, suffering near-fatal gunshot wounds to his arm and leg. After emergency surgery, he went to the police station days later to retrieve his impounded car and belongings, but officers arrested him on an old unpaid traffic warrant and transferred him to ICE custody within hours. He has since been held at Muscatine County Jail, separated from his young son and mother, and says he was denied pain medication for five days and unable to attend medical appointments or physical rehabilitation. He is seeking a U visa as a crime victim cooperating against his attackers, one of whom pleaded guilty, but the county prosecutor has not certified his eligibility. A federal judge ruled his detention without a bond hearing illegal, but Immigration Judge Alexandra Larsen later denied him bond, calling his U visa eligibility 'speculative at best.' His attorney, Emily Rebelskey, said she would continue fighting for his release. His case is among a growing number of crime victims detained for removal following the Trump administration's January 2025 rescission of a policy shielding such victims.

A Senegalese national who entered the US in 2006 and applied for asylum in 2007 was detained without bond on September 17, 2025 for removal after an immigration judge denied his asylum claim in 2012. ICE initially planned to remove him to Gabon, but when that country refused travel documents, they arranged for his removal to Ghana without allowing him to assert fear-based claims about that country. The court granted a temporary restraining order preventing his removal until he receives a fair hearing.

A Honduran asylum seeker was detained by federal immigration authorities on or about September 10, 2025, and has since been held at the T. Don Hutto Detention Center in Taylor, Texas. He filed a habeas corpus petition along with applications for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction, seeking an order barring his removal from the district, production of his detention records, a show-cause hearing, an expedited individualized custody hearing, and his release. He argued that his detention without a bond hearing violates due process and that he faces practical prejudice in preparing his asylum application while detained, raising a right-to-counsel claim. The court found he was not likely to succeed on the merits, citing statutory authorization for detention during removal proceedings and holding that right-to-counsel claims must be raised before the court of appeals on review of a removal order. The court also found no showing of irreparable harm, noting he did not demonstrate how a transfer or his continued detention would harm his asylum claim beyond ordinary hardships of detention. The court denied the TRO application and held the preliminary injunction request in abeyance.

Laura Murillo, a 55-year-old immigrant from Mexico and mother of two, was arrested by ICE in September 2025 while operating her tamale vending stand near Home Depot on 47th Street and Western Avenue during Operation Midway Blitz. She spent six months in federal immigration detention before being released in March 2026 following a court order rather than deportation. Murillo's tamale business, which she had operated for years, allowed her to support her daughters Génesis and Daniela and provide flexible work to other women in her community. Since her release, she says she is in the process of obtaining legal status and is rebuilding her life with a focus on her family, faith, and a slower pace rather than the constant work that previously defined her.

Joaquin Herrera Avila, a Mexican national who first entered the United States in 2006 and again in 2016, was detained by ICE after a traffic stop in Minneapolis in August 2025, where he admitted lacking documents authorizing his presence in the country. DHS detained him without bond and began removal proceedings, and a lower court in Minnesota granted his habeas petition. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that ruling in March 2026, finding that immigrants in removal proceedings are not entitled to bond hearings and can be held in mandatory detention without judicial intervention, and remanded the case for further proceedings.

Jemmy Jimenez Rosa, a 42-year-old legal permanent resident from Peru with a valid green card for over 20 years and mother of four, was detained by CBP and ICE for 10 days after returning from a family vacation in Mexico on August 11, 2025. Her detention was based on a marijuana possession conviction from over 20 years ago that had been pardoned and her record sealed. Rosa was initially held at Boston Logan International Airport for four days without proper medication or access to basic necessities, then transferred to a detention center in Maine without being informed she had legal representation despite CBP agents promising to relay that information. She experienced an anxiety attack during detention. She was not entered into any federal detainee database for three days, making it difficult for lawyers to locate her or seek a bond hearing. Her attorney challenged the detention as unconstitutional, leading to her release on August 28, 2025.

Farzana, a 32-year-old Afghan asylum seeker, was deported by ICE to the Central African Republic on August 28 after years in immigration detention, including time held in Louisiana, with ICE forcing her onto a flight alongside roughly 40-50 men. She and her fiancé had entered the U.S. through the southern border in May 2024 seeking asylum via the CBP One app; her fiancé had applied for a Special Immigrant Visa tied to his assistance to the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. Before her removal, her lawyers had filed a habeas corpus petition challenging her detention, which was unsuccessful, followed by an emergency motion for a restraining order the same day she was deported; the government denied that motion three days later. Farzana described being mistreated in detention, saying officers 'kept us like animal[s],' and says she received only three months of resettlement support from the UN and the host government; she has since been diagnosed with plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest form of malaria, and says she feels 'safe only inside my room' while living alone in Bangui without identity papers, work, or family ties.

David Antonio Aviles Perez, a 35-year-old Salvadoran national known as 'La Bruja,' was arrested by ICE in San Diego on March 26, 2025, and held at Otay Mesa Detention Center for nearly five months without a bond hearing. U.S. District Judge Jinsook Ohta ruled on August 26, 2025 that immigration officials violated his Fifth Amendment rights by failing to make an individualized assessment of danger or flight risk, ordering his release and barring re-detention unless an immigration judge independently finds it warranted. In December 2025, a court in El Salvador convicted him in absentia of aggravated murder for a July 2014 killing in La Union and sentenced him to 20 years. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin publicly criticized Ohta as an 'activist judge,' saying her ruling released a 'wanted murderer.'

Robert Sidhe, a 43-year-old Kenyan physician working as a patient care technician at UW Medical Center, was detained by ICE agents while driving home from the gym in Lynnwood, Washington. While in custody, he suffered a medical crisis with dangerously high blood pressure and stroke-like symptoms and was hospitalized, though imaging showed no stroke had occurred. Sidhe entered the U.S. legally on multiple visas and has a pending asylum application filed in 2023. A federal judge granted a temporary restraining order for his release, citing the risk of a future stroke and noting he serves as the primary caretaker for his fiancée, a disabled U.S. citizen who uses a wheelchair. Colleagues described him as a respected leader in his union, church, and community.