Human Impact Project

Paulino Martin San Pedro, an undocumented handyman who lived and worked in Beaverton, Oregon for more than 30 years, was detained by ICE agents while driving to get lunch in late 2025. He was deported to Mexico within three days, despite having no criminal record. His arrest occurred during a Pacific Northwest immigration enforcement surge internally called 'Operation Black Rose,' which drove a 600% increase in ICE apprehensions in Multnomah County and a 2,100% increase in Washington County. Community members gathered at Southridge High School to rally in support of Martin, a father of three, with speakers praising his character and work ethic. In February 2026, Martin died in Mexico from complications of pneumonia.

Juan Diego Lopez Macias, a 19-year-old Enid High School senior, was arrested during a traffic stop for speeding on February 28, 2026, and subsequently transferred to ICE custody after being charged with driving without a valid license. He was transferred to the Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Anson, Texas, where he awaits immigration court proceedings. Student walkouts and protests occurred across Oklahoma following his detention, with classmates and family members gathering at the state Capitol on March 16.

Dayton Andre Lindsay, a Jamaican green-card holder who has legally resided in the United States for over 28 years, was detained by ICE at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport upon returning from vacation in Jamaica. He and his wife, Benji Lindsay, have been married for over six years and share a blended family of five children and seven grandchildren. Before his arrest, he worked at a Walmart Distribution Center in Joliet, Illinois, and as a chef at several local restaurants. As of July, he remains in ICE custody, and his attorneys have filed a federal habeas corpus petition challenging the legality of his detention.

Nearly a dozen 911 calls placed from the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas since September document medical emergencies involving children in the facility, including infants and young children experiencing respiratory distress, fever, seizures, and other serious conditions. EMS crews were dispatched to the facility at least 11 times, with some children transferred to specialized pediatric hospitals in San Antonio, while Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro has called for the closure of the detention center.

The South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, operated by CoreCivic, faced multiple documented problems affecting detained immigrant families and children. Emergency responders handled at least 11 medical emergencies since September 2025, including respiratory distress, seizures, and fever in infants and young children. Detainees reported finding worms, bugs, and mold in food, contaminated drinking water, and inadequate nutrition, leading to a confirmed measles outbreak in early 2026. Children experienced inadequate medical care, 24-hour lighting, and some were detained beyond the 20-day legal limit. A 13-year-old girl denied prescribed anxiety medications experienced a mental health crisis and attempted suicide before deportation. Following media coverage and a January protest, facility staff increased confiscation of art supplies, drawings, and personal items from detainees, and restricted communications with family and lawyers through Google services and video calls. A federal judge ruled some detentions unconstitutional, and medical advocates and congressional representatives called for facility closure.

Yubizay del Carmen Torrealba Linarez, a 20-year-old Venezuelan single mother, was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents on Wednesday while traveling to her job at Backyard Farms greenhouses in Madison. She fled political violence in Venezuela after her family experienced violent repression by the Maduro regime, including a 2024 home invasion where agents beat her husband and threatened her 2-year-old daughter. She was paroled into the United States in December 2024 and has been awaiting an asylum decision. Her attorney filed a habeas corpus petition in federal court challenging the legality of her detention; a judge ordered her kept in Maine pending review and ordered the government to respond by Wednesday. Since her detention, her sister has been caring for her 4-year-old daughter.

Estela Ramos Baten was detained during a mandatory immigration check-in and deported to Guatemala with her teenage daughter Nory Sontay Ramos on July 4. Ramos Baten had lived in Los Angeles since 2016 and suffered from liver cirrhosis and high blood pressure. She died nine weeks after deportation from complications of liver cirrhosis. Her teenage daughter remained in Guatemala.

A 21-year-old Hispanic man identified as Juan Miguel Munoz Penalver died in Louisville Metro jail on February 26, 2026, while subject to an ICE immigration detainer. He had been in custody since February 14 on criminal assault charges and was held under an ICE detainer that could have extended his detention beyond his scheduled release. The death is under investigation by LMDC's Professional Standards Unit and Louisville Metro Police's Public Integrity Unit.

Carlos García, 42, the former mayor of Mérida, Venezuela, was detained by ICE agents on January 23, 2026, during what his wife Gaby Duarte described as a routine immigration check-in near their home in Butler County, Ohio. García fled Venezuela in 2017 after refusing government orders to suppress anti-Maduro protests, was removed from office, and was sentenced to prison by the Chavista-controlled Supreme Court; he crossed into Texas with his family in 2022, applied for asylum, received Temporary Protected Status, and worked as an Amazon delivery driver. His wife said he has no criminal record and fears torture if returned to Venezuela, where an arrest order remains against him. His attorneys filed a habeas corpus petition, but a February 10 hearing revealed DHS is instead seeking to deport him to Ecuador, a country where he has no family or support network. Duarte said, 'We are simply asking that he be allowed to defend his case where he formally requested asylum.'

Aldrin, a hardworking father and primary household provider, was detained by ICE in early January 2026 in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, after agents followed him and his wife home from work. His young daughters witnessed the detention from their home window. He was transferred out of state to El Paso, Texas, where he allegedly received poor conditions and was denied needed medical care, then moved to a detention facility in New Mexico. His wife has been unable to work out of fear of leaving their children parentless, creating severe emotional and financial hardship for the family.

An 11-year-old U.S. citizen girl recovering from a rare brain tumor was deported to Mexico on February 4, 2025, after immigration authorities detained her undocumented parents and siblings at a Texas Border Patrol checkpoint while the family traveled for her emergency medical checkup. The family was removed despite previously passing through the checkpoint with hospital and attorney letters. Since deportation, her health has deteriorated, with worsening seizures, muscle spasms, and loss of neurological functions, and she has received only one MRI instead of the recommended quarterly scans. Four of the family's five children are U.S. citizens, including an 18-year-old brother left to live alone in the family's Texas home for a year. The family has been living in an area known for kidnappings of U.S. citizens while awaiting a humanitarian parole decision filed through the Texas Civil Rights Project. Congressional members including Reps. Adriano Espaillat, Sylvia Garcia, and Joaquin Castro have advocated for the family's return, and the teenage brother attended the State of the Union as Espaillat's guest, describing his year alone as feeling 'trapped in a coffin.'

A woman now in her 50s, adopted as a toddler from Iran by a U.S. Air Force officer, is facing deportation proceedings after discovering she was never formally naturalized as a U.S. citizen. She entered the U.S. on a tourist visa as a young child and overstayed in the 1970s, which excluded her from automatic citizenship under the 2000 Child Citizenship Act. She discovered the discrepancy in 2008 while applying for a passport, despite her adoptive parents having legally completed her adoption with a birth certificate listing U.S. citizen parents. Raised in the Midwest for 53 years with no criminal record, she fears deportation to Iran, a country with which the U.S. has no diplomatic relations and is currently at war, where she has no family, language connections, or memory of the country, and worries her father's military service and her Christian faith would put her at risk.

George Retes, a disabled U.S. Army veteran and combat survivor working as a security guard at Glass House Farms in Camarillo, California, was detained by ICE agents during a July 10, 2025 workplace raid despite repeatedly identifying himself as a U.S. citizen. Agents broke his car window, pepper-sprayed and tackled him, leaving him with a cut leg and chemical burns, then took him to a Navy base for DNA collection before holding him for three days at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles without access to a lawyer, phone calls, a shower, or a judge appearance. He was released without charges, having missed his daughter's third birthday. In February 2026, represented by the Institute for Justice, Retes filed a federal lawsuit challenging the government's claimed immunity for immigration enforcement officers, testified before Congress, and attended the State of the Union as a guest of Rep. Mark Takano. The same raid resulted in more than 300 arrests, the removal of 14 children, and the death of farmworker Jaime Alanis Garcia, whose family has filed a $47 million wrongful death claim against ICE.

On February 17, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained Sonia Espinoza Arriaga, a Mexican national, and her three children (ages 5, 16, and 18) in Soldotna, Alaska. The family had entered the United States in 2023 and declared themselves at the border seeking protection. Arriaga was married to a U.S. citizen and had been in regular contact with her immigration attorney, who believed no enforcement action would occur for 90 days. The detention followed Arriaga's missed immigration court hearing in January due to miscommunication about the date. Within 36 hours of detention, Arriaga and her two youngest children were deported to Tijuana, Mexico, while her 18-year-old son was transferred to the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington. An immigration attorney filed a habeas corpus petition challenging the legality of the detention, and the rapid deportation prompted an Alaska House Judiciary Committee investigation into ICE activity in the state.

Two Haitian girls, ages 4 and 5, were found dead in a septic tank at Casa Hogar Patos, a migrant transit center in Oaxaca, Mexico on February 24, 2026. The children had been admitted to the facility with their mother while awaiting immigration processing. The Support Group for Repatriated and Refugees (GARR) is demanding an investigation. Two officials have been dismissed but no one has been formally held responsible.

Jorfrank Lugo, a Venezuelan father of two young children detained by ICE on February 23, 2026 during a routine check-in appointment, filed a habeas corpus petition seeking his release. On April 29, 2026, a federal district court in Missouri denied the petition, ruling that he is subject to mandatory detention under federal law and that his continued custody during removal proceedings does not violate his due process rights. He and his wife Daniela remain asylum applicants, and his removal proceedings are now underway. His detention has left his wife, who cares full-time for their two young children, without their family's sole source of income while she tries to fund his legal defense.

A Mexican citizen who entered the U.S. in 2004 as a teenager was arrested by ICE on February 23, 2026, after receiving a citation for driving without a license in Wilson County, Tennessee. He was detained without a bond hearing despite having significant U.S. ties including a U.S. citizen spouse and three U.S. citizen children. The court stayed his transfer and ordered ICE to respond to his habeas corpus petition, requiring them to either distinguish his case from Lopez-Campos v. Raycraft or consent to his release.

Juana Felipe Mateo, a Guatemalan mother of two, was deported from the South Texas Family Residential Center (Dilley) while 8 months pregnant with a third child after three months in detention. She alleges ICE and DHS deceived her into signing voluntary departure papers by offering $15,000 (which she says she never received) and obtaining a doctor's authorization to fly despite her advanced pregnancy. Juana reported that pregnant detainees, including herself, were hidden from U.S. Congressman Joaquín Castro during a facility inspection to prevent them from reporting lack of medical care and alleged mistreatment. She also described being placed in a cold room known as 'la hielera' for five days when her 2-year-old daughter developed fever. She learned of her unborn son's sex only on the day of her deportation.

Sebastian, a 16-year-old Ecuadorian asylum seeker and tri-sport athlete at Osceola High School, was detained by ICE agents in North Minneapolis in early-to-mid January while on a food run. He and his father, known as Manuel, had pending asylum applications and had relocated to North Minneapolis during Operation Metro Surge seeking safety and resources. ICE misclassified Sebastian as an unaccompanied minor and moved him through multiple holding facilities, including a guarded hotel, before flying him to a youth shelter in Grand Rapids, Michigan, run by Bethany Christian Services. For over a week, his family, ICE's own attorneys, and federal authorities had no record of his location. His father and attorney conducted their own investigation to find him, eventually locating him and securing his release through legal action.

Luis Beltran Yañez-Cruz, a Honduran immigrant, died while in ICE custody at the Imperial Regional Detention Facility in Imperial County. His daughter Jocelyn provided a statement read at a February 21, 2026 vigil calling for justice. Organizers documented conditions of medical neglect, overcrowding, and unsanitary conditions at the facility that they say contributed to detainee deaths.