Human Impact Project

Samuel Nnamdi, a 45-year-old pastor and father of five at a small church in Mesquite, Texas, was detained by ICE agents on July 6 while on his way to his job at UPS, still in his work uniform, where he had worked legally for five years with employment authorization and no criminal record. He was later deported to Ghana, a country he had never visited and has no ties to, despite a 2019 immigration judge ruling granting him withholding of removal protecting him from being sent back to his native Nigeria, where he said gunmen had threatened to kill him for preaching. His attorney, Julie Justice, said he was not given proper notice before being deported. His case has been described as part of a broader pattern of third-country deportations, in which the government removes people to nations with which they have no ties through diplomatic agreements with foreign governments. Nnamdi now lives in hiding in West Africa, separated from his wife and children, two of whom are U.S. citizens, connecting with them through video calls before school and on weekends.

A 26-year-old refugee known only as Adam, who fled forced military conscription, was granted protection from removal by a US immigration judge but was secretly deported to Equatorial Guinea in November 2025 under a third-country removal deal. He has been confined alone in a hotel room under armed guard for nearly a year, and was recently handcuffed and beaten by security officers who warned him not to speak out.

Gedion Masunsu, 42, a Waltham resident who spent 16 years seeking political asylum after working for American military contractors in Iraq and completing the Waltham Police Department's Citizens Academy, was deported to Uganda on September 30, 2026, after 19 months in ICE detention, most of it at the Strafford County jail in Dover, NH. He had been arrested on assault charges involving his now-wife that were dismissed by a Massachusetts judge within three months, but his paralegal, Rosette Serwanga, said the charges were not promptly removed from his record and likely influenced his case; an immigration judge denied him bond twice even after he was granted withholding of removal. A federal judge denied his habeas corpus petition challenging his detention without prejudice in December 2025. After the government appealed his withholding of removal, the judge issued a removal order and the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed his case on September 15, 2026, reportedly because his former attorney filed the appeal late. Masunsu said ICE removed him within hours of an inquiry from an aide to Sen. Edward Markey, despite telling officials at a Burlington, MA holding facility that he still had 15 days to appeal. He suffered an untreated rotator cuff injury during an ICE transport van ride, married his partner, Sylvia Mamutabi Mugisha, while detained, and her daughter Paris Kirunda wrote that he 'embraced my siblings and me with genuine love, kindness, and respect.' Fellow detainees described him as a devout Christian whose daily prayer meetings calmed tensions at the jail. He is now in a Kampala hotel with no family or friends remaining in Uganda, relying on financial assistance from the Ugandan community in Boston.

Monica Ryadi, a 30-year-old nurse from Delaware County, Pennsylvania, was detained by ICE agents at Los Angeles International Airport on Sept. 15, 2026, as she arrived with her husband, Steven Sary, and their 3-year-old son for a Disneyland trip. Ryadi has lived legally in the U.S. since age 9, after fleeing religious persecution in Indonesia with her family, and was granted Withholding of Removal in 2010, which allows her to live and work in the country. Officers handcuffed and chained her and threatened to place her son in child protective services when her husband protested, according to court filings. Her attorney said she was never given a warrant or documentation explaining her arrest and that ICE indicated she could be deported to an undisclosed third country. After 15 days in custody at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, a U.S. magistrate judge ordered her released with a GPS ankle monitor, and she was reunited with her husband and son that night.

Mamadou Fadel Cherif, 56, a West Oak Lane man who fled political persecution in Guinea after being jailed for protesting the 1998 presidential election, was arrested by ICE on July 13 as he left his home. Nearly 20 years earlier he had been granted Withholding of Removal, which bars his deportation to Guinea, and he has no criminal record. Cherif works legally as a dining services employee at La Salle College High School and as an Uber driver, and is the primary financial support for his wife, a green card holder, and their four American-born sons, one of whom is a Marines reservist. His employer described him as "an extremely hard worker" whom students and staff love. His attorney filed a federal court petition seeking his immediate release, arguing there is no likelihood of third-country deportation and that he was denied due process. As of September 2026, Cherif remains in detention while the Trump administration seeks to deport him to Ghana, a country to which he has no reported ties.

Bryan Omar Sánchez, a Honduran man who had lived in Colorado for about a decade working as a gardener, truck driver, and pressure-washing business owner, was detained by ICE at his home on May 13 and moved through detention centers in Texas and Arizona. Despite a 2020 Convention Against Torture protection barring his return to Honduras and a pending asylum claim, he was placed on a nearly 22-hour flight to the Central African Republic on July 29 without his consent; one officer reportedly mocked him, asking 'Hey, Honduras, why are you going to Africa?' while Sánchez protested, 'Africa? I can't go to Africa.' Once in Bangui, he described being held in a shelter with restricted movement, facing language barriers and limited access to services, prompting Honduras' National Human Rights Commissioner (Conadeh) to demand urgent consular assistance and verification of his well-being. While detained, Sánchez represented himself in filings with Colorado's federal court, arguing he should not have been removed to a country he had never visited. U.S. District Judge Regina M. Rodríguez ruled that ICE violated his due process rights by giving him no notice or opportunity to challenge the removal, and ordered the government to return him to Colorado and release him without conditions such as GPS monitoring.

Fatou Traore, a 43-year-old University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics custodian born in Ivory Coast, was detained by ICE agents in unmarked vehicles on September 24 while leaving for work, witnessed by her son Esoumaila Diallo and sister Haby Diallo. ICE alleges Traore has a 2011 final removal order and admitted to using a fake birth certificate and passport to enter the country, but her son and attorneys dispute this, saying she never made such admissions and always asked for her lawyer when questioned. Her attorneys provided a 2011 order granting her withholding of removal from Ivory Coast and a valid employment authorization card good through March 2029. She is being held at Richwood Correctional Center in Monroe, Louisiana, and has been told she will be deported to Sierra Leone, a country she has never visited, despite a federal appeals court ruling blocking third-country deportations. Her attorneys have filed a motion to stay her removal. She left behind her husband, who works alongside her at the hospital, and four sons ages 3 to 19.

Malick, a pseudonym for a Senegalese man who fled to the US in 2023, had a work permit and legal protection against deportation to his home country, but was placed on a third-country deportation flight to Ghana. He was held at a remote military camp with little electricity or communication, alongside Rabbiatu Kuyateh, a 58-year-old nurse who fled Sierra Leone's civil war and had lived in the Washington, D.C. area for 30 years. Kuyateh was detained by ICE during a routine check-in in July 2025, and despite a judge ruling she could not be deported to Sierra Leone due to past torture there, her attorney says the government pursued sending her to a third country without a hearing. She was flown to Ghana in shackles on a 10-hour flight, and Malick filmed her being forcibly dragged into a van by people believed to work for Ghana's government when she resisted being put on a bus to Sierra Leone. After the footage spread online, Ghanaian troops arrived at the camp at night with trucks of soldiers. Kuyateh's son, Mohamed Alghali, said he has not seen her since the July check-in.

Nika, a 32-year-old Iranian woman who fled Iran after protesting the regime and losing friends in the government's crackdown, had been granted 'withholding of removal' by a US immigration judge to prevent her return to Iran. She was released from ICE custody on May 28, 2026, but days later was re-arrested during what officers called a routine check-in in California. She was handcuffed, shackled, and placed on a deportation flight with 17 other migrants to the Central African Republic, a country she said she had never heard of or visited. Since arriving in Bangui, she has largely stayed indoors out of fear, been stopped by local police demanding bribes, and was hospitalized after contracting malaria. Her immigration lawyer is now filing a federal lawsuit seeking to bring her back to the US and reopen her asylum claim.

José Serrano Salgado, Ecuador's former interior minister under President Rafael Correa, fled to Miami in 2021 and later applied for asylum. ICE arrested him outside his Miami home in mid-2025, and he spent nearly a year detained at Krome North Service Processing Center, where a source said he lost about 25 pounds and his prediabetes worsened into diabetes. In May 2026, an immigration judge denied his asylum claim but granted deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture after he showed he faced torture if returned to Ecuador. Three Trump-appointed appeals judges reversed that protection within a day of reviewing the case, and Serrano was deported to Ecuador within hours, sent on a private jet in late August 2026. He now faces murder charges over the 2023 assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio and is held in a maximum-security prison, where a source said he has been abused, including having his fingernails smashed, being denied food, and being told footage of him stripped naked would be shared with Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa, a political rival of his former boss.

Ahmed Soliman, a gay man in his early 30s who fled Egypt as a child and grew up in Phoenix and Tucson, had won a judge's ruling protecting him from deportation to Egypt over fears of persecution based on his sexuality and family history. Despite this ruling and a pending habeas petition, ICE transferred him from Arizona to Louisiana and deported him in April 2026 to a decommissioned hotel in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, under a $7.5 million third-country removal deal that has sent at least 66 people there since November 2025. After guards confiscated detainees' phones, police pointed rifles at Soliman and forced him to his knees when he tried to film officers and the forced removal of other detainees to Ethiopia. Amnesty International reported he was bound and beaten by police upon arrival. After speaking to journalists, including the American Prospect, about conditions at the facility, he was arrested on accusations of damaging property, then blindfolded, beaten, and pushed down a staircase before being transferred to a prison in Malabo. He and another detainee from Eritrea have since been missing for more than a week, with his attorneys unable to confirm charges against him or his location and fearing for his life, believing the arrest was retaliation for speaking to the media.

An Iraqi man showing early signs of dementia was arrested by ICE agents in his front yard after living in the United States for more than 30 years. An immigration judge had ruled he would likely face torture if returned to Iraq, but he was nonetheless held in an Arizona detention facility while officials searched for another country willing to accept him. He was among more than 120 immigrants identified in Arizona who remained detained despite winning protection from removal to their home countries.

In late August, ICE deported three Nicaraguan men to the Central African Republic, even though none of them had ties to that country and at least two had protections in place that barred their return to Nicaragua. The men reported being transported in handcuffs under duress and were left stranded in Bangui with uncertain immigration status. The deportations are part of a broader U.S. policy of sending migrants to third-party African countries when legal barriers prevent their return to their countries of origin.

Samson Birhane, 47, arrived in the US as an Eritrean refugee at age 13 and lost his immigration status after a robbery conviction in 1988, though he had already served his sentence and had been regularly checking in with ICE as required. A US immigration judge had previously ruled he faced a risk of torture if returned to Eritrea, but he was instead deported to Equatorial Guinea under a $7.5 million agreement between the countries. On September 11, 2026, Birhane and fellow deportee Ahmed Soliman, who grew up in Phoenix after his family fled Egypt when he was young, were arrested after helping document abusive conditions at Hotel Bamy, a site used to detain US deportees; officers covered their heads with bags, beat them, and pushed one down a staircase while demanding to know where phones were hidden, accusing them of breaking a mirror. Amnesty International said the men are now held in an overcrowded police cell without access to their attorneys and called for their immediate release, saying the arrest was retaliation for exposing authorities' efforts to coerce deportees into returning to their home countries; the group also cited a September 5 incident in which police pointed firearms at Soliman and other deportees.

A Mexican man identified only as John Doe, who testified against drug traffickers on behalf of U.S. prosecutors, was arrested by ICE as soon as he returned to U.S. soil despite a federal judge's order allowing his safe return. He had been deported three times, most recently on August 1, to an area of high drug-trafficking activity in Mexico, even though an immigration judge had deferred his deportation in 2024 under the Convention Against Torture due to fears he could be tortured by the Mexican government or others acting with its consent. He was never enrolled in the federal witness protection program despite cooperating in criminal cases, and his lawyer, Anna Tijerina, says his life remains at risk from organized crime. U.S. District Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher had ordered that if detained again, he be held within 200 miles of Baltimore, where he lived, with guaranteed access to his attorney.

Pietro Graza de Lima, a gay Brazilian man who lived in Orlando, Florida for about seven years running a small services business, fled Brazil after corrupt police shot him over his sexuality, an attack that cost him a kidney and left lasting physical damage. After his student visa expired and he was arrested for drug possession, ICE detained him for nearly two years, including time at Eloy Detention Center in Arizona. On April 16, 2026, an immigration judge granted him protection from deportation to Brazil under the Convention Against Torture, but ICE continued holding him while seeking another country to deport him to. After he refused to sign a document accepting removal to Liberia, he was shackled for roughly 36 hours and flown to Liberia—where he and other detainees refused to disembark—and then to Equatorial Guinea, a country with which he has no ties. His attorney said he was denied the interview he was entitled to under CAT protections before being sent there. He and about a dozen other deportees have been confined at a decommissioned hotel, Hotel Bamy, in Malabo, where armed officers confiscated his phone on September 8, 2026 after he spoke with journalists, cutting off contact with his attorneys and leaving him unreachable since September 9, 2026.

Peta-Gaye Chambers, 35, who came to the United States from Jamaica as a child, had been granted 'withholding of removal' by a U.S. immigration judge in 2013 after he found she would face persecution in Jamaica. Despite that protection, ICE deported her to Equatorial Guinea in June without notice. Chambers says she and other deportees were dragged from their rooms at gunpoint, handcuffed, assaulted and threatened by armed guards at the decommissioned Hotel Bamy in Malabo, where she remains held.

An Iranian woman in her early thirties, a pro-democracy activist who said she had been threatened by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, fled Iran, crossed the Darién Gap, and arrived in the U.S. at the end of 2024, where a judge granted her legal protection from being deported back to Iran after finding she had credible fear of persecution. Despite that protection, she was deported on June 12, 2026, from Louisiana to the Central African Republic on a flight carrying roughly two dozen migrants from countries including Jordan, Armenia, Turkey, Georgia, and Afghanistan, under the Trump administration's third-country deportation agreements. Her attorney, Emily Trostle, said she was left in a country where she has no status, no connection, and no support network. She now lives in isolation, afraid to leave her apartment, and says local police have extorted her for cash. Her family said she could be killed if ever returned to Iran, and she fears execution if her situation changes once her temporary visa expires. Two other Iranian women originally scheduled for the same flight, whose asylum claims had been denied under a transit rule later vacated by a California federal court, received emergency court orders temporarily halting their removal.

Khalil, a 24-year-old Afghan man whose brother served alongside U.S. forces in the Afghan Army and another brother died fighting the Taliban as a pilot, was deported to the Central African Republic despite having been granted 'withholding of removal' by a U.S. immigration judge in August 2025. His family in Afghanistan had received threats from the Taliban because of his brothers' work supporting the U.S. military, according to court documents. The flight that landed in Bangui also carried 12 Afghans, eight Iranians, and several people from Nepal and Nicaragua; it was the second such flight to the Central African Republic since June, when two dozen migrants including an Iranian woman facing persecution were deported there. He crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in 2024 and was held in ICE custody throughout his time in the U.S.; he did not qualify for asylum due to a Biden-era policy requiring migrants to seek protection in other countries first. A retired Marine colonel who supervised his brother said he fears Khalil could be killed if eventually returned to Afghanistan.

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.