Human Impact Project

Adam Mohamed Abdullah, a 31-year-old Somali auto mechanic and asylum seeker living in St. Paul, was arrested by masked federal agents on December 12, 2025 during 'Operation Metro Surge,' despite holding a work permit, Social Security number, a pending asylum application, and no criminal record beyond two parking tickets, and despite regularly attending ICE check-ins. He was moved through detention facilities in Minnesota, Kentucky and Louisiana over roughly nine months before being transferred to Guantánamo Bay's Camp Six in late August alongside fellow Minnesotans Hassan Abdi Abtidoon and Abdullahi Jamal Abdi. His attorney, Marc Prokosch, said communication with him was limited and possibly not confidential, calling the use of the base a 'political scare tactic,' a characterization Sen. Tina Smith echoed after DHS described the group as having serious criminal histories without presenting evidence specific to Abdullah. Abdullah began a hunger strike over lack of information, after which he said guards beat him and placed him in a freezing solitary cell; while detained, his mother died after authorities denied his request for an international call and voluntary departure to see her. The ACLU sued the federal government over its use of Guantánamo for civil immigration detention, with a hearing set for October 14. Abdullah and the other two men were flown through Kenya and deported to Somalia around September 25, 2026.

Martin Soto, a Peruvian immigrant and father, was arrested by masked federal agents while out buying diapers for his children and detained at Delaney Hall, an ICE facility in Newark, New Jersey. He helped lead a hunger and labor strike protesting poor food and inadequate medical care, and in the early morning of May 25, 2026, ICE agents broke through a protester blockade and transferred him overnight to solitary confinement at a facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. His wife Gabriela, a U.S. citizen who was pregnant at the time, organized protests outside Delaney Hall on his behalf; she lost her pregnancy in July after an emergency C-section and said she had to deliver the news to her husband while he remained in solitary. Soto spent five months in solitary and nine months total in ICE custody before his lawyers obtained him a U-visa, and he was released and reunited with his family, fitted with an ankle monitor despite having no criminal record. ICE data obtained through a Deportation Data Project Freedom of Information Act lawsuit showed more than 700 detainees were transferred out of Delaney Hall, which advocates say was an attempt to break the strike; a Homeland Security spokesperson disputed the data's accuracy.

Katsiaryna Bartko, a 33-year-old Belarusian asylum seeker and thyroid cancer survivor, is being held at the CoreCivic-operated Midwest Regional Reception Center in Leavenworth, Kansas, where her partner says her medical condition has severely deteriorated. Lab records show her thyroid-stimulating hormone level spiked to more than 31 times the normal range, with dropping calcium levels causing pain, spasms and voice loss, and she has not been seen by an endocrinologist despite a referral. Days before a federal court hearing on her medical care, she was moved to a solitary isolation room and staff allegedly attempted to confiscate legal documents she had prepared for the hearing. Bartko entered the U.S. legally in 2022 and applied for asylum in 2023 after speaking out against the Belarusian government and the war in Ukraine.

Marianita, a woman held in ICE detention, said sickness spread among detainees while her requests for medical care were ignored. She described being soaked with cold water, forced to dry off in front of an air conditioner, and later confined in a freezing punishment room as her pneumonia worsened. She was transferred through ICE facilities in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas during her detention.

Camila Toro de Paula, a 25-year-old transgender woman from Venezuela seeking asylum, has spent 11 months at the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Jena, a facility for men. She says she has been assaulted, threatened and deprived of medical care, and has been held in solitary confinement without ready access to water for up to 24 hours a day. Medical files show she complained to social workers about being punished for her gender expression, and immigration officials cited her criminal history, though records show the most serious charges against her, felony assault and weapons possession, had been dismissed. Her case comes as the federal government has halted specialized care for transgender detainees at at least 10 detention centers nationwide and removed longstanding protections for transgender people in custody.

Camila Toro de Paula, a 25-year-old transgender woman from Venezuela, has been held for nearly a year at a men's ICE detention facility in Jena, Louisiana, after being arrested during a routine immigration check-in at ICE's New York City office in August 2025. She fled Venezuela after suffering childhood abuse, including repeated rape by relatives and a homophobic stabbing attack by police, and sought asylum in the U.S. two years ago. Toro de Paula says she has been assaulted, threatened, placed in solitary confinement, denied water, and deprived of the hormone therapy she had received for years, after a policy protecting transgender detainees was eliminated in February 2025. She told The New York Times, "I'm afraid of dying here," and says she has resisted pressure to voluntarily return to Venezuela. Immigration officials cited felony assault and weapons charges as justification for her detention, though both charges were later dismissed and sealed.

A leaked video filmed by a detainee inside the River Center ICE Detention Center in Louisiana shows 76 people held together in a single crowded space. Detainees allege exposure to outbreaks of tuberculosis, flu, and conjunctivitis, and say sick people are being placed in punitive isolation cells instead of receiving medical care. The detainee who filmed the footage asked media outlets for help publicizing the conditions.

In a smuggled video from the 1,000-bed South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, run by GEO Group, detained women describe abuse, medical neglect and family separation. Larina says ICE separated her from her five-month-old daughter after she called police during a domestic violence incident and was arrested instead of her husband; she says she has been ordered deported but has remained detained for three months. Other mothers at the facility say they do not know where their children were taken after being separated, and one Cuban woman remained detained even after winning her case because the Department of Homeland Security appealed. Kelly, a Venezuelan woman with one failing kidney, says the facility denies her testing, medication and specialist care, leaving her with painful urination and fluid retention, unsuitable frozen food and no clean water; other women describe a miscarriage, pregnancy without adequate care, an amputation, and say one detainee was placed in solitary confinement after recording video while others faced hitting and threats for speaking out.

Hunger strikers at the Adelanto detention center in California faced retaliation from ICE officials after staging protests, according to attorneys with the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef). Detainees were zip-tied, threatened with teargas, placed in solitary confinement, and transferred to other ICE facilities. ICE officials denied that detainees were forgoing food and denied that retaliation was occurring, instead claiming that one detainee who led the hunger strike faced disciplinary actions for vague facility violations.

A transgender woman detained at Eloy Detention Center in Arizona reported being strapped into a wheelchair, handcuffed, and interrogated for hours by detention officers. The account was shared by U.S. Rep. Yassamin Ansari and represents one of multiple allegations of human rights abuses at the facility, including solitary confinement, inadequate water and food, and extreme temperatures. ICE has disputed many of the allegations, and the incident highlights ongoing concerns about how transgender people are treated in immigration detention.

Sanan Atou, 43, says he was placed in solitary confinement for about three weeks in January at North Lake Processing Center after sharing food with detainees who could not afford commissary items. He described poor heating in the isolation cell, saying, "I felt like I was going to freeze to death. I didn't know if I was going to wake up." A federal data analysis found North Lake recorded only 13 uses of solitary confinement in all of 2025, compared with 30 in March 2026 alone. The facility has also faced scrutiny following the death of detainee Nenko Stanev Gantchev and a hunger strike over conditions.

Five immigrants detained by ICE at the Federal Detention Center in downtown Miami reported experiencing severe conditions including cramped, scorching-hot cells, widespread cockroach infestations, broken toilets overflowing with waste, and denial of medical care. According to accounts from detainees, their relatives, and a prison employee, men sleep in their underwear to keep cool and sweat through bedsheets due to extreme heat. Family members and advocates reported severe overcrowding with up to 97 men in cells designed for 50, lack of air conditioning during extreme heat, inadequate medical care, cockroach-infested meals, and forced consumption of contaminated water. Families alleged that detainees who spoke to media about these conditions faced retaliation, including solitary confinement and warnings from officers not to speak publicly. The facility, a Bureau of Prisons location, has housed ICE detainees as part of mass deportation operations, with many detainees recently transferred from other regional holding centers including the now-closed Alligator Alcatraz facility.

Celestin Dima, a gay asylum seeker from Burkina Faso, fled kidnapping, military persecution and police torture after being outed before crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in 2024. An Arizona immigration judge granted him withholding of removal, finding he would likely face persecution if deported home, but ICE held him at the Eloy Detention Center for nearly two years while searching for a third country willing to accept him, considering Ghana, Cameroon and Uganda—all countries where homosexuality is criminalized. While detained, he grew depressed, stopped eating, and was placed in solitary confinement for two weeks. A federal judge ordered his release in June 2026 after granting a joint habeas petition, but ICE redetained him on July 17 during a mandatory check-in at a field office in Lower Manhattan. He was then transferred through detention facilities in New Jersey and near Dallas, fitted with a GPS ankle monitor, and scheduled for deportation without being told in advance where he would be sent.

A Cuban national held at Florence Correctional Center in Arizona staged multiple hunger strikes to protest what he described as inhumane detention conditions and lack of transparency regarding his asylum claims. He alleges that ICE subjected him to solitary confinement and restrictive measures to isolate him from legal counsel and advocacy groups after his protests gained attention. He was subsequently deported to Ecuador, a third country, which terminated his ability to participate in U.S. legal proceedings.

Approximately 300 immigrants detained at Delaney Hall, a privately operated ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey, launched a hunger and labor strike beginning May 25, 2026, to protest conditions including spoiled and expired food, inadequate medical care, overcrowding, filthy bathrooms, lack of hot water, and denial of medical treatment. Detainee Elder Guerra, a Guatemalan immigrant, suffered a head injury after slipping in the shower and was placed in isolation rather than receiving proper treatment. Martin Soto, arrested by ICE four months earlier while buying diapers, remained detained despite a judge blocking his removal from the facility. Detainees reported retaliation by facility staff, including beatings, solitary confinement for strikers, and confiscation of personal items. The facility, operated by Community Education Centers, faced scrutiny for a pattern of medical neglect and rights violations, with sustained crowds of protesters gathering outside in solidarity.

Carlos Iván Mendoza Hernández was shot seven times by ICE agents during a traffic stop in Patterson, Stanislaus County, California on April 8, 2026. According to dashcam video and eyewitness accounts, Hernández reversed away from officers who had drawn weapons, then drove forward as agents opened fire; ICE stated he attempted to run over agents with his vehicle. While hospitalized at Doctors Medical Center in Modesto, FBI agents accessed his HIPAA-protected medical records without clear authorization or warrant, prompting concerns from his federal public defenders. After discharge, Hernández was arrested by the FBI and placed in solitary confinement at California City Detention Center with his gunshot wound injuries remaining unaddressed. On June 27, 2026, he was removed from the facility for a scheduled medical appointment to evaluate bullet fragments, but his family received no updates for hours and the detention center refused to confirm his whereabouts or safety.

A 77-year-old Iranian man with a rare, life-threatening liver disease was detained at Otay Mesa Detention Center and placed in solitary confinement despite doctors recommending his release. He had lived in the U.S. under supervised release for over two decades and had multiple health conditions including sleep apnea, severe diabetes, and hearing loss. While detained for six weeks, he lost 10 pounds, experienced high blood sugar readings, and was denied essential CPAP equipment after staff reported losing parts of the machine. Two doctors and a nurse practitioner wrote letters urging his release. A federal judge ordered his release in January after finding ICE officers violated his due process rights.

Katsiaryna Bartko, a 33-year-old Belarusian thyroid cancer survivor, has been held by ICE since early June 2026, most recently at the CoreCivic-run Midwest Regional Reception Center in Leavenworth, Kansas. She requires daily hormone medication and calcium supplements for permanent hypoparathyroidism and chronic hypocalcemia following cancer surgery, but her partner, Dmitry Shyshov, says she was initially denied her prescribed medications despite intake records documenting her needs. She was hospitalized three times in four days, once in acute distress requiring intravenous calcium, and lab records showed her thyroid-stimulating hormone soaring to over 31 times normal. A Harvard endocrinologist and an independent physician with Physicians for Human Rights both warned her continued detention is medically unsafe, risking organ failure, coma, or death. Bartko entered the U.S. legally on an F-1 student visa in March 2022 and filed for asylum in 2023, citing persecution over her pro-democracy activism and opposition to Russia's invasion of Ukraine; she was detained in Florida after local domestic battery charges against her were dropped and has never been convicted of a crime. She was placed in solitary isolation days before a federal court hearing, and a judge has ordered the government to bring her to a Kansas City courthouse to hear her petition for release.

Orolua Eluonyechie, a Nigerian national, has been held in immigration detention for over two years, initially detained in Atlanta in April 2024 and later transferred to Allen Parish in southwest Louisiana. While detained, he has been injured by guards and placed in solitary confinement. He filed a federal habeas petition seeking release or deportation but remains waiting for judicial action as federal courts in Louisiana become overwhelmed with habeas petitions from detainees held in prolonged detention.

All detainees at the South Florida Detention Center, a facility in Florida's Everglades known as "Alligator Alcatraz" that opened in July 2025, were transferred to other facilities in mid-June 2026. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security cited hurricane season safety concerns as the reason for the transfers. However, immigration advocates and lawyers dispute this explanation, noting the facility operated throughout the previous hurricane season without prior closures. Approximately 800 detainees have been transferred, with families and legal representatives reporting difficulty locating them and unclear information about their current status. The facility had faced persistent criticism and lawsuits over poor conditions, including worms in food, non-functioning toilets, flooding, denial of medical care, solitary confinement, and inadequate legal access.