Human Impact Project

A man was arrested for driving while intoxicated in Dallas, Texas on October 20, 2022, and was issued a Notice to Appear for removal proceedings. He was convicted of DWI on June 15, 2023, and released on his own recognizance by DHS. On April 29, 2026, when he reported to the Dallas ICE Field Office as directed, he was re-detained. The court found that his re-detention without notice and opportunity to be heard violated due process and granted his habeas corpus petition, ordering his immediate release on the same conditions he was subject to prior to re-detention.

A man who entered the United States without inspection in December 2023 was initially released on his own recognizance in January 2024. On April 29, 2026, ICE re-detained him when he appeared for a routine ICE check-in. The court granted his habeas corpus petition and ordered his immediate release under the same conditions as before his re-detention.

A Mexican citizen who had lived in the U.S. for over 16 years was detained by ICE after being pulled over for speeding on April 29, 2026. He had approved immigration applications and no criminal history but was held without a bond hearing under a new government interpretation of detention law. The court ordered his immediate release, finding his detention violated due process rights.

An immigration detainee who entered the U.S. without inspection in February 2023 was released on his own recognizance during removal proceedings. After three years of complying with release conditions, he was arrested without notice during a routine ICE check-in in Dallas on April 29, 2026. The court granted his habeas petition and ordered his immediate release, finding his detention without pre-deprivation process violated due process rights.

An immigrant previously released on bond or conditional parole was detained on April 29, 2026. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California granted his petition for a writ of habeas corpus and motion for temporary restraining order, finding that the government violated his Fifth Amendment due process rights by re-detaining him without providing a pre-deprivation bond hearing before a neutral arbiter. The court ordered his immediate release with the same conditions he was subject to prior to his detention on April 29, 2026, and prohibited the imposition of additional restrictions such as electronic monitoring unless determined necessary at a future hearing. If the government seeks to re-detain him in the future, it must provide at least seven days' notice and hold a constitutionally compliant pre-deprivation bond hearing.

A man was lawfully admitted to the United States on a C-1 crewman visa with authorization to remain until April 12, 2021. He stayed in the country after his visa expired and filed an asylum application in June 2021. On April 29, 2026, more than five years after his visa expiration, immigration officials arrested him. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California granted his petition for writ of habeas corpus, finding that his five-year period of continuous release after visa expiration created a protected liberty interest. The court ordered his immediate release from custody at the Central Valley Annex detention facility and enjoined respondents from re-detaining him without notice and a hearing before an immigration judge pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a).

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.

Benjamin Hernandez was stopped for a regulatory violation on Highway 49 in Concord on April 29, 2026. During the traffic stop, a K-9 unit alerted to narcotics, and a search uncovered 78.7 pounds of methamphetamine. Hernandez was arrested, charged with trafficking methamphetamine, issued a $1 million bond, and placed on an ICE detainer due to his immigration status.

Oliver Escobar Tovar, 45, was arrested around 5 a.m. on Wednesday following a traffic stop in Paragould, Arkansas after an officer observed expired tags on his vehicle. During the stop, Tovar provided a passport and insurance information, though one source notes he stated he did not have a driver's license or registration. After police contacted Homeland Security Investigators regarding Tovar's immigration status, authorities determined he had been previously deported. ICE placed a detainer on Tovar at Greene County jail.

At "Ricky" Chandee has spent 90 days in ICE detention as the Trump Administration seeks to deport him to Laos based on a conviction from the early 1990s. His family is working to prevent his deportation and keep him in the United States.

ICE conducted a targeted enforcement operation in the Antioch neighborhood of Nashville on April 29, 2026, with unmarked vehicles that remained in the area for hours. Officers with a court-issued arrest warrant detained one undocumented immigrant after observing surveillance of the location and making several attempts to communicate with individuals inside the residence. Residents gathered outside the home yelling to impede the operation. Metro Councilmember Joy Styles, who witnessed the arrest, described the scene as chaotic and noted the situation involved more than routine enforcement.

Tony Arnold Bernstone, a New Zealand citizen, was convicted of second-degree felony child kidnapping in Utah and ordered to self-deport to New Zealand for four years. The conviction resulted from an assault on a 12-year-old child following a doorbell prank incident.

Jaime Ernesto Alvarez-Gonzalez, 53, pleaded guilty to impersonating a U.S. Border Patrol agent and disrupting deportation operations in San Diego on January 8. He modified a black Ford F-150 with law enforcement-style features and followed a real Border Patrol agent, causing the officer to abandon his mission for safety. Alvarez-Gonzalez coordinated multiple vehicles to harass and chase federal agents onto the highway and possessed firearms despite being prohibited from doing so.

On April 28, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit unanimously ruled that the Trump administration's mandatory detention policy for immigrants without inspection—implemented in July 2025—violated federal immigration law and constitutional due process by denying bond hearings. The case centered on Ricardo Barbosa da Cunha, a Brazilian national who had lived in the U.S. for over 20 years with work authorization, a business, and a pending legal status application when detained under the policy in September 2025. The court rejected the government's statutory interpretation of 1996 immigration law, finding it improperly expanded detention to all non-citizens regardless of U.S. residence length, criminal history, or community ties. The decision created a circuit split, as two other appellate courts had previously upheld the policy, setting up likely Supreme Court review.

A non-citizen woman was detained at Adelanto ICE Processing Center for entering the United States without inspection. She was denied bond eligibility under a recent immigration decision but challenged her continued detention. The court granted her petition and ordered that she be provided a bond hearing within seven days or be released.

Barbara, a young woman from Tigray, Ethiopia, fled her country's civil war and traveled through Brazil before crossing into the US, where she was detained by border police and sent to an immigration detention center in Louisiana. A judge granted her withholding of removal, a protection barring deportation to her home country, but months later she was abruptly put on a flight and deported to Cameroon on April 28, 2026. She now lives in a government-run migrant shelter in Yaoundé with no family, no local language skills, and hopes to seek asylum in Cameroon rather than return to Ethiopia.

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.

Arbella "Yari" Rodríguez Márquez, a 39-year-old queer woman and legal permanent resident with chronic lymphocytic leukemia since 2013, was detained by ICE on February 10, 2025, after being apprehended at the Nogales port of entry while returning from Mexico with her partner of over 13 years, Sonia Almaraz. Her legal residency was subsequently revoked by a federal immigration judge, and she was placed in removal proceedings at Eloy Detention Center. Over the course of her detention, her health has severely deteriorated: she has lost 70 pounds, developed additional conditions including rheumatoid arthritis, lymphedema, and anemia, and experiences hematemesis (vomiting blood daily), nosebleeds, bruising, extreme fatigue, and dehydration due to lack of adequate medical care—receiving only Tylenol for pain management. A parole request filed by her lawyer was denied on June 24, 2025. By April 2026, more than three dozen Arizona lawmakers, the LGBTQIA Legislative Caucus, and LGBTQ+ advocacy groups including Trans Queer Pueblo have called for her immediate humanitarian release, warning that her continued detention in a facility with a history of deaths amounts to a "death sentence" given her medical vulnerability.

Santiago Medrano was detained by ICE on April 28th, the same day his family received keys to their new home. His wife María and their five children are fundraising to cover legal immigration expenses and other costs while he remains in detention.

A Carnegie man with valid work authorization was taken into custody by ICE. A local congressman investigated the detention and confirmed the man's valid work authorization status at the time of arrest. A federal judge subsequently granted the man a bond hearing.