Human Impact Project

U.S. District Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger ruled that ICE unlawfully detained asylum seeker Andrei Bankevich from Belarus in Muscatine County Jail for over a year and that federal officials violated his due process rights by refusing to release him without a court order.

A 23-year-old woman was detained at a Border Patrol checkpoint on State Route 94 after agents suspected her of smuggling undocumented migrants but found no evidence of a crime. An agent falsely told her he found "deleted evidence" on her phone; when she grabbed it back, agents twisted her arm and wrestled the phone from her. As she turned to walk into a holding cell, an agent Tasered her, striking her breast. She was pregnant with a 2-month-old baby at the time and was hospitalized to have the Taser prong removed; her breastmilk was bloody for weeks. Federal prosecutors charged her with assaulting a federal officer but dismissed the charge in August after body camera footage contradicted agents' allegations and her attorney argued agents violated her constitutional rights by arresting her without probable cause and using excessive force.

Aliya Rahman, a U.S. citizen from Minneapolis with autism and traumatic brain injury, was arrested by Capitol Police while attending the State of the Union as a guest of Rep. Ilhan Omar. The federal government announced it will not file charges against her. Rahman claims she was arrested for standing silently in the gallery; Capitol Police say she refused to obey lawful orders.

Cristian Humberto Jerez Andrade, a 31-year-old Honduran national, was detained during an ICE raid on March 11, 2026, at a South Burlington residence. ICE agents had a search warrant for the property but Jerez Andrade's name was not on it; they were searching for another individual who was not present. He was held at Northwest State Correctional Facility for approximately one week before an immigration judge granted him release on a $10,000 bond on March 19-20, 2026. Jerez Andrade has not been charged with a crime, though deportation proceedings have been initiated against him.

A Venezuelan man with a U.S. citizen son was detained at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, despite having been previously released by ICE. Court records indicate ICE reassessed his tattoos as a basis for re-detention. He was among at least 16 asylum seekers released by federal court order after successful litigation challenging their detention.

An Afghan asylum seeker was assured by ICE that two missed check-ins would not be held against him—one due to a double-booked appointment and another due to hospitalization for a heart arrhythmia. Two months after the hospitalization, ICE detained him at work, claiming he was a flight risk for missed check-ins and failing to report a move to Portland. ICE provided no documentary evidence of the violations. U.S. District Judge Kymberly K. Evanson ruled in his favor and released him after 41 days of detention at the Northwest Detention Center.

Multiple Ohio organizations, including ACLU Ohio, Community Refugee and Immigration Services, and Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, filed a lawsuit on March 18, 2026, against the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Customs and Border Protection, alleging federal agents illegally arrested people without proper arrest warrants or probable cause since April 22, 2025. The lawsuit includes a specific case from December 2025 in which plainclothes agents in an unmarked vehicle arrested a man outside a home improvement store without displaying a warrant, despite his active asylum case, valid work permit, and social security number. The suit names four immigrants held in ICE custody for weeks before a judge determined they were not flight risks, and cites a leaked January DHS memo that broadened the criteria for considering someone a flight risk. Federal agencies have filed only one document in the case and have not responded to requests for comment amid an ongoing partial government shutdown.

A California man was detained for days in December after a rookie ICE agent made critical errors in paperwork that became the federal government's justification for his detention. The new officer had completed an abbreviated basic training program that provided only one-third of the hours previously dedicated to teaching recruits how to fill out a key form, according to federal court records.

A 14-year-old Brazilian national was detained by ICE agents in Marlborough, Massachusetts on March 10, 2026, during an operation targeting suspected gang members. She was transferred to a juvenile detention facility in New York without following proper legal procedures. A federal judge ordered her immediate release on March 12, 2026, finding the detention and out-of-state transfer violated constitutional protections and questioning why she was not turned over to state child welfare authorities instead. She was reunited with her aunt and uncle in Massachusetts but received a notice to appear in immigration court and now faces deportation to Brazil. Her attorney plans to challenge the deportation and petition for special immigrant juvenile status.

Andrei Bankevich, a Belarusian asylum seeker granted relief from deportation to Belarus under the Convention Against Torture, was arrested on a drunken driving charge in Minnesota in February 2025 and transferred to ICE custody. After ICE detention facilities filled during Operation Metro Surge, he was transferred to Muscatine County Jail in Iowa in December 2025. ICE claimed it had been working on potential third-country removals for Bankevich since September 2025, but provided no documentation. Federal Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger ruled on March 11, 2026, that ICE illegally detained Bankevich beyond the six-month limit in violation of federal law and his due process rights, calling his jailing "prolonged and seemingly interminable" and ordering his immediate release.

Leonardo Espartaco Martinez, a U.S. citizen and community watcher with VC Defensa in Ventura County, was violently detained by ICE agents on March 10 after responding to aid a fellow community patroller who had been pepper-sprayed on Buyers Street in Simi Valley. Video footage shows agents in four vehicles blocking and ramming Martinez's minivan as he tried to reverse away, with one agent emerging with an assault rifle raised; a photographer identified an emblem on an agent's hat matching one worn by an agent at a prior protest at the Metropolitan Detention Center. Simi Valley police also arrived and sought to question Martinez about the collision, but he requested legal counsel before speaking; agents then broke his window and dragged him out as he held his arms out to be handcuffed, injuring his knees, shoulders, and wrists. He was treated and later discharged from Los Robles Regional Medical Center around noon, and his minivan was impounded. This marks the third time ICE agents have rammed Martinez's vehicle; a previous incident on October 16, 2025, in Oxnard also led to his detention and transfer to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles.

Juan, a Honduran national who came to the U.S. seven years ago seeking asylum, was arrested by ICE during a traffic stop on a Virginia highway while driving to work. He had an active asylum case, work permit, and marriage petition to a U.S. citizen at the time of his arrest. After spending one month detained at Farmville Detention Center, Juan was released on bond following a habeas petition but now faces an uncertain asylum process with declining approval rates under the current administration.

Masked federal agents pulled over Willy Wender Aceituno Medina, a Honduras-born U.S. citizen, and forced him from his vehicle. The incident was posted on Instagram by Democracy Now, a news organization.

Tatyana Reisini and Kristen Roos, two Charlotte mothers, were chased by federal Border Patrol agents on November 17, 2025, while driving to the Southern Christmas Show. Agents surrounded their vehicle in a parking lot, pursued them into a residential neighborhood, and cornered them in a driveway where an agent pointed an assault rifle at Reisini's face and smashed the car windows with the gun, scattering glass onto her. Roos was 10 days post-surgery at the time. Both women were zip-tied and falsely imprisoned at an FBI office for approximately four hours. They were initially charged with assaulting federal officers, but the U.S. Attorney's Office voluntarily dismissed the charges on March 2, 2026. Video of the incident recorded by a neighbor received nearly 9 million views on social media. Through the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, the women filed a Federal Tort Claims Act notice against U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Department of Homeland Security, seeking $3 million in damages and attorneys' fees.

The Trump administration invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport more than 230-260 Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador's CECOT supermax prison in March 2025, alleging ties to Tren de Aragua and MS-13. A federal judge ordered a halt to the deportations and verbally directed the flights to turn back, but the administration proceeded, saying the planes had already left US territory. Neither government publicly identified the detainees or provided evidence of gang affiliations; internal DHS data later showed only 32 had US criminal convictions, most for nonviolent offenses, and roughly 75% had no US criminal record, with at least 27 never having been ordered removed. Detainees were held incommunicado, with reports of torture, beatings, sexual violence, and prolonged solitary confinement, while the US paid $6 million to house 300 migrants at the facility. After about four months, the Venezuelans were transferred to Venezuela in a prisoner exchange, though the administration reported losing track of 137 of them. In 2026, a federal judge ordered the administration to facilitate the return of more than 130 of these men to the US for their immigration proceedings.

A federal judge ruled that at least 32 people arrested during Operation Midway Blitz, a major ICE enforcement action in the Chicago area between June 2025 and October 2025, had their arrests violated a 2022 consent decree governing warrantless apprehensions. Among those improperly arrested were Jose Miguel Jimenez and Jeickson Delgado Avila, undocumented immigrants detained during a September 29 raid on an apartment building at 75th and South Shore Drive when ICE agents rappelled from helicopters and broke down doors. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings found the arrests lacked sufficient probable cause that individuals were flight risks, as required by the Castañon Nava consent decree, and that agents provided no justification for their assessments. Of the 32 improperly arrested, 11 are believed to still be in detention, 11 have left the country, and 10 have been released under various conditions. The judge also rejected a recent agency directive that sought to give immigration agents more discretion to make warrantless arrests.

Yoshi Cuenca Villamar, a 23-year-old U.S. citizen and landscaper from Charlotte, was tackled by immigration agents while working during warrantless enforcement operations across North Carolina in late 2025. Villamar is one of five plaintiffs—four U.S. citizens and a visa holder—who filed a federal class-action lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina on February 28, 2026, against the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, CBP, and USBP. The lawsuit alleges the agencies conducted unlawful warrantless arrests without probable cause during and after Operation Charlotte's Web. ICE arrested 3,304 people in North Carolina between January and October 2025, more than 2.8 times the total during the same period in 2024. The lawsuit seeks to declare the warrantless arrest policy unlawful and block the agencies from continuing such arrests.

Elaina Aghayeva, an Azerbaijani national and senior neuroscience researcher at Columbia University, was detained by Department of Homeland Security agents at a university residential building on February 26-27, 2026. DHS agents entered without a warrant and falsely claimed to be searching for a missing child. DHS stated Aghayeva's student visa had been terminated in 2016 for failing to attend classes, though her attorney and the university stated she was a current student in good standing. After approximately nine hours in custody, Aghayeva was released following intervention by NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who met with President Trump regarding the case. Aghayeva's attorney filed a habeas corpus petition in federal court, and the detention prompted student protests at Columbia University.

Willy Wender Aceituno, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Honduran descent who has lived in Charlotte, North Carolina for over 25 years, was arrested by ICE and DHS agents in November 2025 without a warrant. During the encounter, agents smashed his truck window with a baton and forcibly removed him from the vehicle despite him showing them his REAL ID confirming his citizenship. When Aceituno began filming the agents on his phone, they threw him onto the broken glass, handcuffed him, and transported him approximately two miles away before releasing him bleeding on the side of the road. The incident triggered childhood trauma from witnessing his father's arrest and disappearance by the Honduran military. In February 2026, Aceituno filed a $1.25 million lawsuit against federal immigration authorities alleging violations of constitutional amendments and claims of assault, battery, false imprisonment, and negligent supervision. Aceituno is the lead plaintiff in a federal class-action lawsuit with the ACLU alleging that ICE and CBP agents made warrantless arrests without probable cause across North Carolina.

Ramon Checo Hilario, a Providence Uber driver, was arrested by Cranston police on Feb. 26, 2026, after being wrongly identified as the suspect in a Jan. 27 theft of about $3,300 worth of sunglasses from a Cranston Sunglass Hut. Police linked the crime to Hilario through his car's registration despite differences between him and the surveillance footage, and ICE then detained him for 56 days, from Feb. 26 to April 23, before his release on bond. The shoplifting charge was later dismissed, and on May 27 Hilario filed suit in U.S. District Court in Providence against Cranston police, the city, an unnamed officer, Sunglass Hut, and a store employee, seeking a jury trial and unspecified damages for false arrest, malicious prosecution, negligence, and emotional distress.