Human Impact Project

Anna Catherine Delgado, a Venezuelan woman living in San Antonio, was detained by ICE agents on April 29, 2026, outside her residence while holding her 4-year-old son Isaiah, as approximately eight armed agents in vests surrounded her and took her without explanation. Her husband José Rosales arrived carrying their 1-year-old daughter Hannah, who was still breastfeeding and has since refused the formula given to her. Delgado and Rosales had filed for political asylum, which was denied, though she had continued attending immigration verification appointments without issue since 2020. Delgado was transferred to Arizona and told she would be deported to Venezuela the following Sunday; her mother-in-law, Norma Rosales, said the children keep asking about their mother and that the family has been unable to get help, despite Rosales's unanswered request for his wife to remain in the country to pursue legal residency.

J.R.V., a 40-year-old with valid work authorization, was arrested by a sheriff's deputy in Florida in December while driving to a construction job. He was transferred through multiple detention facilities over five months, including the controversial Alligator Alcatraz in Florida, and eventually held at ICE's Aurora detention center operated by GEO Group. After 127 days in detention, he was released with only the clothes on his back and no identification documents. He filed a successful habeas corpus petition in federal court to challenge his detention and was released on April 29, 2026.

J.R.C., an 11-year-old from Venezuela who had lived in El Paso for nearly four years, was detained alongside his father Jesus Eduardo Reyes Hermes on April 28, 2026, when ICE agents arrested them outside their South-Central El Paso home. The boy was separated from his father and placed in shelter custody under the Office of Refugee Resettlement, while his father was transferred to Camp East Montana detention facility. J.R.C. was attending school in El Paso, where he had learned some English and was developing academically, with a teacher he credited with helping him learn to read. After his father was released on bond in June and the boy's asylum case was denied, J.R.C. requested voluntary departure on July 7, 2026, to reunite with his mother and siblings in Venezuela and Colombia. He expressed both sadness at leaving his friends and school, and excitement about seeing his family.

Israel Makoka, 18, and Max Makoka, 15, brothers from the Republic of the Congo on F-1 student visas, were detained by ICE agents on April 21, 2026, at a school bus stop in Diamondhead, Mississippi while waiting for transportation to Hancock High School. The teenagers were restrained with zip ties in front of classmates and family members. Their visa status had expired following an undocumented transfer from private boarding school to public high school. Both brothers had lived legally in the U.S. since 2023 and 2024, had no criminal records, and had valid guardianship paperwork from their host parents. Israel was transferred to Central Louisiana ICE Processing Facility in Jena, Louisiana, while Max was transferred to an out-of-state facility in Houston. Community members and local officials called for their release. Israel Makoka, 18, and Max Makoka, 15, from the Republic of the Congo, were detained by ICE for over a week after being arrested as they walked to their school bus stop in Diamondhead, Mississippi on July 8. The brothers had entered the U.S. on student visas in 2023 and 2024 to attend Piney Woods School, a historically Black boarding school, and stayed with their legal guardians, Gail Baptiste and her family, during summers and holidays. When the brothers transferred to nearby Hancock High School, ICE said they violated their student visas by changing schools without authorization. They were held in separate facilities in Houston and Jena, Louisiana before being released after community support and intervention from U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith's office. The family is now seeking reinstatement of the brothers' student visas.

A woman was released from ICE custody in March 2026 by a federal court in Arizona, but was re-detained by ICE on April 27, 2026 when she reported to the Detroit ICE field office for a routine check-in. She was subsequently transferred to facilities in Louisiana and Texas without explanation or allegation of any violation of her supervision terms. The court granted emergency relief ordering her immediate release.

A Venezuelan national entered the United States on April 14, 2024, and was granted parole. He has no criminal history and is not subject to a final removal order. On April 26, 2026, he was arrested following a routine traffic stop in San Angelo, Texas, and transferred into ICE custody at the Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Texas, then moved to Central Valley Annex Detention Facility in McFarland, California. He petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus, challenging his detention as a violation of Fifth Amendment due process rights, arguing he was re-detained without a pre-deprivation hearing. The federal court granted his petition and ordered his immediate release, finding that detention without a pre-deprivation hearing violated the Due Process Clause. The court enjoined respondents from re-detaining him unless they provide seven days' notice and hold a bond hearing before a neutral arbiter where the government must demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that he is a flight risk or danger to the community.

A vigil titled "Disappeared in Berks" was held at the First Unitarian Universalist Church in Reading to commemorate 75 immigrants discharged from Berks County Jail to ICE between March 2025 and March 2026. Seventy-five pairs of empty shoes were displayed to represent those taken. The event featured testimonies including a letter from Gladis Garzon about her husband Carlos Gonzalo, who has been in ICE custody for eight months after being transferred from the county jail, and has been moved between detention facilities in multiple states.

Sundas Naqvi, a 28-year-old U.S. citizen, was detained by ICE agents at Chicago O'Hare International Airport on March 5, 2026, after returning from Turkey. She claimed a 43-hour ordeal involving transfer to Dodge County Jail in Wisconsin and was released early Saturday morning with a dead phone. Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt denied having any record of her at the facility, while DHS disputed her account by releasing surveillance footage showing secondary screening lasted less than an hour. In April 2026, Sheriff Schmidt filed a million-dollar defamation lawsuit against Naqvi, characterizing her detention claims as false and part of a "romantic scam" with her boyfriend. Naqvi's attorney provided location data and requested release of additional surveillance footage.

Alejandro Cabrera Clemente, 49, from Valle de Santiago, Guanajuato, Mexico, had lived in the United States for about 25 years and was married to a U.S. citizen, though he had not obtained legal residency. He was arrested by ICE on January 8, 2026, in Tennessee and transferred over five days through facilities in Tennessee and Alabama before arriving at Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana on January 13. During roughly three months in custody he was treated for high blood pressure, fever, and back and throat pain, receiving medication according to ICE. On April 11, 2026, he was found unresponsive with facial paralysis and cyanosis during a security check; resuscitation attempts failed and he was pronounced dead at Winn Parish Medical Center. The coroner attributed his death to natural causes from cardiovascular disease. Guanajuato's Human Rights Secretariat located his sister in Atlanta and offered funeral assistance and possible repatriation. His death was one of several ICE custody deaths reported in early 2026.

Argam Nazarian, a 27-year-old Iranian Christian who fled religious persecution and arrived in the U.S. as a refugee in 2008, was arrested by ICE on June 23, 2025, while heading to work in Los Angeles. He had lived legally in Los Angeles for four years, working as a delivery driver and in air conditioning while supporting his wife and serving as a caretaker for his mother, who has chronic health conditions. An immigration judge ordered his release on bond in August 2025, finding he posed neither a flight risk nor danger to the community, but the federal government refused to release him, arguing his classification as an "applicant for admission" requires mandatory detention. Nazarian was held in ICE detention in El Paso and later transferred to Cibola County Detention Center in New Mexico, where his knee injury requiring ACL reconstruction remained untreated. The Texas Civil Rights Project challenged his detention through habeas corpus petitions. After nearly 10 months in custody, a federal judge ruled on April 17, 2026, that his detention violated his Fifth Amendment rights, and Nazarian was released. War between the U.S., Israel, and Iran beginning February 28, 2026, had disrupted ICE's deportation plans, with charter flights to Iran temporarily ceased.

A native and citizen of El Salvador who entered the United States in 2019 after fleeing persecution and torture. He was apprehended near the San Ysidro Port of Entry and expressed immediate fear of return. In August 2019, an Immigration Judge granted him withholding of removal under the Convention Against Torture (CAT), finding he faced torture if returned to El Salvador due to false gang affiliation accusations by Salvadoran authorities. He was released on an Order of Supervision and faithfully complied with all conditions for nearly seven years, attending every ICE check-in, obtaining continuous employment authorization, working legally since 2021, and living in California with his partner and their seven-year-old daughter. On April 14, 2026, he voluntarily appeared for his routine ICE check-in in Los Angeles but was re-detained without any pre-deprivation notice, hearing, or explanation of the basis for detention. He was transferred to Adelanto ICE Processing Center and then moved out of jurisdiction to El Paso, Texas without required notice. DHS issued notice of intent to remove him to Mexico, a third country not designated in his original removal order. On May 7, 2026, the federal court granted his temporary restraining order (TRO), ordering his immediate release under previous supervision conditions and enjoining his removal to any third country without notice and opportunity to be heard on fear-based claims.

Yousef Azizi, an Iranian researcher, journalist, and Virginia Tech PhD candidate who lived in the U.S. for 13 years with valid legal status, was arrested in a pre-dawn operation outside his Maryland home on April 13 shortly after dropping his children off at school, with more than ten FBI vehicles involved and agents pointing rifles at him before he was taken to a detention center in Baltimore. During three months in custody, interrogators repeatedly questioned him over an unsubstantiated claim that he had belonged to the Student Basij Organization during his first master's degree, invoking the U.S. government's 2019 terrorist designation of the IRGC, though he said authorities never presented evidence despite several court hearings. He was then shackled and transferred over six days from Maryland to Louisiana, Arizona, and California, including two nights in a freezing Arizona facility with 30 others that he said caused serious health deterioration, a process he attributed partly to the business practices of private detention contractors; a judge denied bond despite 250 pages of support letters from professors at the University of Michigan, Harvard, Virginia Tech, and other institutions. Azizi, a regular media commentator critical of U.S. and Israeli foreign policy, said an FBI agent twice threatened his wife, and he ultimately took a voluntary return to Iran, where he hopes to defend his dissertation remotely.

Yousof Azizi, a 40-year-old Iranian PhD candidate at Virginia Tech, was detained by Homeland Security Investigations agents outside his Germantown, Maryland home on April 13 and transferred to an immigration detention facility in Arizona. His wife denies DHS allegations that he lied on his student visa application about membership in Iran's Student Basij Organization and claims his visa status issue was a pretext, asserting he was speaking publicly about U.S.-Iran relations based on his academic research.

Tania Warner, a 47-year-old Canadian citizen from Penticton, B.C., with a valid U.S. work visa through 2030 and a Social Security number, and her seven-year-old autistic daughter Ayla Lucas were detained at a Border Patrol checkpoint near Sarita, Texas, on March 14, 2026, while returning from a baby shower with Warner's American husband Edward. The family, who had lived in Kingsville for five years, was separated from Edward and held at the Ursula Central Processing Center in McAllen, sleeping on the floor of a cold cellblock for five days before being transferred to the Dilley Immigration Processing Center. Warner said guards were "sadistic, inhumane and abusive," taunted her for being Canadian, and pressured her to self-deport, telling her she could do it "the easy way or the hard way." Ayla suffered chemical burns and a stress-related rash from harsh cleaning products, and the family reported inadequate healthcare, food shortages, and insufficient schooling during roughly three weeks in custody. Penticton-Summerland MLA Amelia Boultbee called the detention "extrajudicial," and Congressman Vicente Gonzalez said neither Tania nor Ayla should have been detained. Warner was released on bond of $9,500 on April 2-3, 2026, fitted with an ankle monitor she is contesting in court, and plans to file a lawsuit alleging unlawful detention and harm to her daughter.

Mauro Yosueth Henriquez, 18, a senior at Sam Houston Math, Science and Technology Center in Houston and varsity soccer team co-captain, was detained by ICE on December 16, 2025, during a routine immigration check-in with his father. He was held at multiple ICE facilities including Montgomery Processing Center in Conroe and Livingston before being transferred to federal detention. After nearly four months in custody, Henriquez was deported to Honduras in February 2026. His detention prompted Houston students to organize protests calling for his release so he could graduate with his class. Elected officials and Houston-area Democrats responded to the case, while Texas Republican leaders declined to comment. Mauro Yosueth Henriquez, a senior captain and midfielder on the Sam Houston Math, Science and Technology Center soccer team, and his father Mauro Rigoberto Henriquez were detained by ICE on December 16 and are reportedly held at a detention center in Conroe. The younger Henriquez is also a volunteer soccer coach in the community. Neither has a criminal record according to Harris County District Clerk's Office, and both are originally from Honduras. Community members organized a protest on Tuesday evening calling for Henriquez's release so he can graduate with his class. Mauro Henriquez, an 18-year-old senior and soccer team captain at Sam Houston Math, Science and Technology Center in Houston, was taken into custody by ICE along with his father while attending an immigration meeting in early December 2025. Henriquez and his father, both from Honduras, were seeking asylum in the U.S. and have been detained at Montgomery Processing Center for over 50 days. Henriquez is an A and B student who has lived in the U.S. since grade school and serves as a volunteer soccer coach at his church. Christian Jimenez, a 17-year-old US citizen and senior at McMinnville High School, was detained by ICE officers after they smashed the window of his father's car during his lunch break. Despite repeatedly asserting his citizenship, an officer broke the car window and ordered him out of the vehicle. Jimenez was taken to an ICE facility in South Portland and held for several hours before being released that evening. Authorities later attempted to charge him with interference or obstruction of investigation.

Octavio Andrade-Aguilera, a Mexican national, remains in ICE custody at the Etowah County Detention Center in Gadsden, Alabama, as of April 10, 2026, after being transferred there on April 5. Magistrate Judge Mike Dumitru had denied the federal government's request to detain him, finding he was not a flight risk, in order to avoid harming his wife and disabled American citizen daughter. Andrade-Aguilera has lived with his family in north Georgia for several years and is their sole financial provider, while his wife is their daughter's sole caregiver.

Arpine Misakyan, a Southern California resident with a pending asylum case, was taken into custody after a domestic altercation with her husband at The Buffet at Wynn in Las Vegas. Although the Clark County District Attorney's office declined to pursue a domestic battery charge against her, ICE arrested her while she was being held at the Clark County Detention Center. She was transferred to the Henderson Detention Center and then to the Adelanto ICE Processing Facility, where she filed a lawsuit challenging her detention before ultimately withdrawing it and agreeing to voluntary departure to Armenia three months after her arrest.

A 61-year-old Canadian green card holder was deported from Florida to Toronto on April 15, 2026, after 62 days in ICE custody, including nine days at the Dade-Collier "Alligator Alcatraz" facility before it closed, followed by time at Glades County Detention Center. He had pleaded no contest to tax evasion in 2022 over about $12,000 in unpaid Florida sales tax tied to his shuttered Tropical Smoothie shop in Port Charlotte, which closed during the pandemic. Now living in Montreal and staying with his sister-in-law while he regains his identification documents, he is working as a DoorDash driver to get back on his feet. He remains separated from his wife, children and grandchildren, who stayed behind in Naples, Florida, and has reflected on the death by suicide of a 19-year-old fellow detainee he met during his detention.

Daniela, originally from Colombia, came to the United States on a work permit and is married to a U.S. citizen with a pending green card application. For months, she cooperated with a detective from the Florida Department of Financial Services, answering dozens of questions and providing documentation about insurance fraud committed by her former employer. When the detective asked her to meet in April to discuss the case, Daniela was instead detained, handcuffed, and arrested. "It's very cruel the way they arrested me," she said; neither the detective nor the department responded to requests for comment. She has no criminal record. She was taken to the Palm Beach County jail and then transferred in chains to ICE facilities in two different states before being released on bond in May. The 287(g) Task Force program now includes more than 1,300 law enforcement agencies across 32 states and two U.S. territories deputized to enforce federal immigration laws.

Dy, a Vietnamese refugee with an order of supervision, was arrested by ICE in November 2017 during a home visit and detained for five months and twenty-one days before being released following public attention and a habeas corpus petition. In fall 2025, during Trump's second term, Dy was arrested again after attending an ICE check-in appointment at the Atlanta field office, where he was sent on what he describes as a trap involving confusing directions between floors. He was transferred to Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, where he remained in detention as of April 2026. Dy is a former incarcerated person who turned his life around, became a Christian, married Tammy, and together they own a home and are raising three children with a fourth on the way. His wife and community have organized to support him, including celebrating a gender reveal party during his detention via video call with commissary materials.