Human Impact Project

At least three people were detained Friday after immigration officials conducted a raid at a roofing job site in Morristown, according to a statement by the company. Limited details were provided about the individuals involved.

Zoilo Viloria, a 66-year-old Colombian asylum seeker who worked in building maintenance in Tacoma, Washington, was detained by ICE agents in the parking lot of a McDonald's while stopping for coffee on his way to work. His daughter, Stephany Viloria, said agents had been scanning license plates in the lot to check drivers' immigration status and took her father away in handcuffs after he nervously handed over his documents. She described him as a hardworking man with no criminal record, not even a traffic infraction, who entered the U.S. legally in 2018 on a tourist visa and later filed for asylum after receiving threats in Colombia, obtaining a work permit and driver's license while paying taxes. Days after his arrest, he was transferred, shackled at the hands and feet, to a detention facility in El Paso, Texas, where he was able to contact his family again but has struggled with cold conditions and uncertainty about his care.

A Global X ICE Air charter flight carrying as many as 78 detained Haitian nationals departed from Alexandria, Louisiana and Opa-locka Executive Airport in Florida, bound for Cap-Haïtien. The flight was the third in three weeks following the Supreme Court's decision allowing the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status for more than 300,000 Haitians, even as litigation over the termination continues. DHS publicized the flight with images and video of shackled deportees boarding, drawing outrage from Haitians and immigrant rights activists, as the deportations proceed despite ongoing gang violence and massacres in Haiti.

Renan Hédouville, a lawyer, human-rights advocate and former head of Haiti's Office of Citizen Protection (ombudsman), was arrested by U.S. immigration authorities while visiting Montgomery, Alabama, after Haitian police issued a warrant for him on corruption allegations. Hédouville, who entered the U.S. lawfully in May 2025 but overstayed the terms of his admission, asked to voluntarily return to Haiti and was aboard a deportation flight that departed Opa-locka Executive Airport for Cap-Haïtien. Investigators in Haiti have accused him of obstruction of justice, unlawful contracting, and claiming over $127,000 in expenses tied to fictitious missions and payments to family members while he led the agency responsible for safeguarding human rights.

José Serrano Salgado, Ecuador's former interior minister under President Rafael Correa, fled to Miami in 2021 on a tourist visa and applied for asylum months later. ICE agents arrested him outside his Miami home in mid-2025 for overstaying his visa, and he spent nearly a year in detention at Miami's Krome North Service Processing Center, where a source said he lost about 25 pounds and his prediabetes worsened into diabetes. In May 2026, Immigration Judge Romy Lerner denied his asylum claim but granted him deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture. Despite that order, ICE deported Serrano to Ecuador on a private jet in late August 2026, where he faces murder charges over an alleged role in the 2023 assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio. A source said he is now being abused in an Ecuadorian jail, including having his fingernails smashed and being denied food.

A joint operation by the Lorain County Sheriff's Office, Homeland Security Investigations, and ICE swept through farmland and roadways near Oberlin, Ohio, arresting two men on criminal human trafficking charges and detaining roughly 50 other people on civil immigration violations. The yearlong investigation targeted a suspected smuggling network accused of recruiting workers under false pretenses and transporting them to agricultural businesses using shell transportation and contracting companies. Law enforcement conducted traffic stops of at least six vans and used a drone to track movement during the operation; three U.S. citizens were left behind in a Walmart parking lot after others nearby were detained. Oberlin city officials said they had no advance knowledge of the operation, which conflicts with the city's longstanding sanctuary policy limiting local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

Adnero Pinto Sebastiao, an Angolan national with a pending asylum application, was arrested by ICE agents as he returned from lunch to his job at a bank in the Lewiston area. He had entered the U.S. legally on a tourist visa in March 2024 before applying for asylum, and his immigration case remains pending. His attorneys filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus arguing the detention was an unlawful warrantless arrest lacking individualized assessment. A federal judge issued an indefinite injunction barring ICE from removing him from the U.S. or transferring him out of the District of Maine, and ordered the government to justify the detention. A DHS spokesperson said Sebastiao overstayed his visa and that a pending asylum application does not confer legal status.

Leonardo Sánchez, a 49-year-old Cuban national and lawful permanent resident who arrived in the U.S. in 2010 under the Cuban Adjustment Act and worked as a welder, was deported to Liberia and then Equatorial Guinea after ICE detained him at a gas station. Sánchez suffers from a severe abdominal hernia caused by a stabbing that once left him in a coma for 40 days, and had reconstructive surgery scheduled at Jackson Memorial Hospital before his removal. He said agents refused to remove his shackles or let him use the bathroom during the 14-hour flight, and when he refused to disembark in Liberia out of fear of being abandoned, agents allegedly threw him down the aircraft steps and knelt on his exposed hernia. In Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, doctors refused to treat him without documents, leaving him only paracetamol for pain, and he is now held with five other deportees at a former hotel under armed guard, unable to contact family. His mother and sister in Florida say a lawyer they hired to help him was a scam, and Equatorial Guinea has no asylum framework, leaving him facing indefinite detention or return to Cuba. DHS said Sánchez was ordered removed following a cocaine possession conviction and denied mistreating him.

An 81-year-old Iranian immigrant is set to be released from ICE custody following a months-long legal battle. Family members reportedly described themselves as 'thrilled and ecstatic' upon learning of the decision.

A driver was arrested by ICE agents in North Brunswick, New Jersey after fleeing a traffic stop, running a red light, and crashing into another vehicle on Route 130. The second vehicle, reportedly carrying the wife of East Brunswick Mayor Brad Cohen, sustained heavy front-end damage, and both of its occupants were taken to the hospital with minor injuries. ICE agents pursued and detained the driver following a foot chase, according to police, who said local officers only responded after the crash occurred and were not involved in the federal operation.

Luis Ivan Campos was detained by ICE while driving to work and subsequently deported on September 3rd, according to his son Christian Campos. He was not pulled over for a traffic violation or detained by local law enforcement before being taken into ICE custody. Campos was the primary caregiver for two of his children with disabilities: a 17-year-old with severe Hemophilia Type A who uses a wheelchair and was recently hospitalized, and a 4-year-old with Down syndrome who also has severe Hemophilia Type A. His family, including his wife Karina, started a fundraiser to help cover expenses and support the children following his deportation.

Eduardo, known as Walter, was detained by immigration agents while resting during his lunch break at work and sent to a detention facility in Georgia. He has since been repeatedly transferred between ICE facilities, limiting contact with his family to two-minute daily phone calls. Walter, described by his family as faithful and headstrong, had a pending case for legal residency and a work permit. His wife and daughters are raising money for legal fees and a possible bond ahead of an upcoming court hearing.

Set Salvador Esquivel Alvarado, who came to the United States at age 12 and has no criminal record, was detained by immigration agents outside his home while preparing to leave for work. His community describes him as quiet, respectful, and hardworking. Set is the primary financial provider for his parents, including his disabled father who cannot work. He has since been transferred to the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, and his family is raising funds to cover an estimated $20,000 bond and legal fees.

Vic Bud, who has lived in the United States since 1987, is being held in ICE custody at the Northlake Detention Center under a final deportation order to Romania. He is married to a U.S. citizen and has five U.S. citizen children, ages 2 to 14, who depend on him as the family's sole breadwinner. His wife launched a fundraiser to cover rent, daily expenses, and relocation costs as the family prepares to move to Romania to stay together.

The petitioner, an immigration detainee, filed a habeas corpus petition arguing he is not subject to mandatory detention under immigration law and is entitled to an individualized bond hearing. He is currently held at the Florida Baker Correctional Institute. Along with the petition, he filed an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order seeking to prevent his transfer outside the court's jurisdiction while the case is pending. The court found he showed a substantial likelihood of success on his claim that his mandatory detention is unlawful. The court granted the TRO, barring immigration officials from removing him from the Middle District of Florida through September 21, 2026, and construed part of his request as a motion for preliminary injunction. The court ordered the government to respond by September 11, 2026, and consolidated the injunction request with merits review of the habeas petition.

The petitioner, born in a Philippine refugee camp to parents who fled Laos, entered the United States as a refugee at one month old and later became a lawful permanent resident. He has lived in the U.S. for over 40 years, is the primary breadwinner for his family as a certified glazier, and cares for his U.S. citizen partner, her three children, their shared five-year-old autistic son, and his elderly disabled U.S. citizen mother. After a 2002 robbery conviction, he was ordered removed to Laos in 2017 but released on an order of supervision because Laos would not accept him as it does not recognize stateless former refugees as citizens; he complied with ICE reporting requirements without further arrests for nearly nine years. In March 2026 a state court vacated his underlying conviction as unconstitutional, and he filed a pending motion to reopen his immigration case. On September 3, 2026, he was abruptly re-detained at a routine ICE check-in after Laos reportedly issued a travel document that ICE refused to show him or his attorney, and he was denied a proper informal interview before being served a removal warrant. He filed a habeas petition and TRO motion the same day seeking immediate release and protection from removal, and the court granted the TRO, ordering his immediate release, barring re-detention without notice and a hearing, and prohibiting his removal pending further proceedings, with a preliminary injunction hearing set for September 21, 2026.

Anthony Tyrone Higgs, a Bahamas national who was admitted to the United States as a lawful permanent resident in October 1976, was arrested by ICE Homeland Security Investigations agents on September 3 in Decatur, Georgia. DHS said Higgs has a lengthy criminal history including weapons offenses, grand larceny, armed robbery, domestic violence and assault on a police officer, and has been placed in removal proceedings seeking to revoke his residency status. DHS also said an investigation confirmed Higgs illegally voted in the 2020 election, though the agency did not specify a criminal charge tied to that allegation. He remains in ICE custody while removal proceedings continue.

More than 60 federal agents raided the Nutrition Bar Confectioners plant in Cato, New York in September 2025, herding roughly 160 workers into a breakroom and arresting 57 of about 100 people questioned, including pregnant women and mothers of young children. Body camera footage later released in a lawsuit showed agents breaking down a locked bathroom stall door to remove a female employee and separating workers by citizenship status, with some told they would be arrested if they asked for an attorney. Argentina Juarez-Lopez, 50, invoked her right to counsel, but an agent falsely claimed she confessed without one; a federal judge called the conduct 'grossly negligent' and suppressed the evidence, yet she was deported after her case was dismissed. Juana Castillo Avelar, a mother of three U.S. citizen children who had lived in the U.S. over 20 years, was granted $9,000 bond but was deported before ICE would release her, based on a false claim she had appealed. Only five of the 57 arrested faced criminal charges, mostly for illegal reentry, and no charges have been filed against the company. The New York Civil Liberties Union and the Worker Justice Center of New York filed a lawsuit alleging officers lacked arrest warrants, exceeded search warrant authority, and violated workers' Fourth Amendment rights; one deported plaintiff has since been allowed to reenter the country while attorneys for another seek his return.

Nayleth Gabriela Martínez Jiménez, a Venezuelan woman, discovered she was pregnant after being detained by U.S. immigration authorities. She says she is experiencing pain and fears for her pregnancy, and is asking to be released from the immigration detention center or returned to Venezuela.

Luis Miguel Chávez, a Venezuelan man, was held for nearly seven months at an ICE detention center before being released. He said he lost his house, car, and job during his detention and is now trying to rebuild his life in San Antonio.