Human Impact Project

A 1-year-old unaccompanied migrant child appeared in Arizona immigration court without legal representation and was told to file an asylum application before the next hearing or face deportation. This follows the end of a federal contract with the Acacia Center for Justice that had funded legal representation for over 24,000 unaccompanied migrant children. Nonprofits allege new government-contracted attorneys from USCRI have remained silent during hearings, leaving children to represent themselves despite a court order requiring continued legal services.

Adams County Health Department confirmed a laboratory-confirmed case of active tuberculosis involving a detainee at the GEO Group-operated Aurora ICE Processing Center. Officials said GEO failed to provide medical records, patient access, and housing or movement information required to investigate possible exposure among detainees, staff, contractors, or visitors, prompting a Public Health Order on June 25, 2026 requiring compliance with Colorado tuberculosis investigation laws. ICE denied any active TB cases at the facility and denied violating any laws or guidelines. As a lawsuit between the state and GEO Group continued, Colorado health officials asked a judge in August 2026 to force the company to allow investigators to complete the tuberculosis probe.

ICE agents detained a Cambodian man Tuesday morning while he was working at Veranda Asian Market in Woodfords Corner, Portland, Maine. His name has not been publicly released, but Khmer Maine, a nonprofit in contact with him, described him as "quiet, kind and a hard worker." Marpheen Chann, executive director of Khmer Maine, said the arrest has sparked fear in local Asian immigrant communities and is "hurting Maine's local economy and making our communities feel less safe." Khmer Maine says it is working with his family and immigration advocates to ensure transparency. ICE has not released statistics on its recent operations in Maine, though national ICE detention numbers reached a record high of more than 65,000 last month.

Arín García Yepes, a Colombian migrant, arrived in Liberia on August 20 aboard an ICE-operated deportation flight from Louisiana, despite holding a stay of removal that should have protected him from deportation. Before boarding, he and other detainees asked one another whether they had withholding of removal, and most, like him, answered yes. He is now among migrants held in Liberia without identification or a clear timeline for release.

William Ortiz Hernández, a Honduran man previously granted protection from removal by a U.S. immigration judge under the Convention Against Torture, was deported on an ICE flight that left Alexandria, Louisiana on August 20 carrying about 20 people and landed in Liberia. He is now housed at the Creed Lodge hotel in Monrovia, where he has received treatment for his diabetes but has no passport or identification beyond a card that lets him withdraw money sent by family. "I feel like they dumped me in a trash heap," he said, describing fear and confusion in a country whose language he does not speak.

Elvis Rodriguez Venturas, a Honduran immigrant who worked in construction in Texas, was deported by ICE to Liberia on a flight that landed Aug. 20, 2026. An immigration judge had previously barred his deportation to Honduras after finding he could be harmed there, and he had been using that protection to work legally in the U.S. His wife and four children, two of whom are U.S. citizens, remain in Texas, and he said his children ask him daily when he is coming home.

Carlos Rodríguez López, a 35-year-old Cuban man who had been living in Miami Gardens with his wife, was deported after being held in ICE custody since April 2025. He was part of a group of deportees flown out of the U.S. on Aug. 19-20, 2026, who refused to leave the aircraft after it landed in Liberia, arguing the country was not their home. Officers reportedly handcuffed and forcibly removed the men, twisting their cuffs and pinning at least one to the floor, before the plane continued on to Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. His wife, Igrayne Ribot, said she learned where he was only through a brief video call, telling a reporter she broke down when he said he was in Africa. Advocates representing the group say conditions at the hotel now holding roughly 40 deportees, including Rodríguez López, have included withheld meals and physical abuse by guards.

The petitioner, who had previously been released on bond, conditional parole, or humanitarian parole, was re-detained by immigration authorities on August 20, 2026. She is currently held at the California City Detention Facility. She filed a habeas corpus petition and motion for a temporary restraining order, arguing that her re-detention without a pre-deprivation bond hearing before a neutral arbiter violated the Due Process Clause. The government did not identify any facts or legal arguments distinguishing her case from several prior rulings in the same district finding such re-detentions unconstitutional. The court agreed, finding that the proper remedy for the government's failure to provide a constitutionally compliant hearing was her immediate release. The court ordered her released under the same conditions that applied before her August 20 detention, barred additional restrictions like electronic monitoring absent a future hearing, and required at least seven days' notice and a bond hearing before any future re-detention.

Kenia is currently in ICE custody, separated from her 2-year-old son Nico and her husband, according to a fundraiser started by her mother-in-law, Anne Limon. Kenia came to the U.S. legally as an infant on a visa that expired in 2015 while she was still a child, and she has no criminal history. A judge found her eligible for bond during a recent immigration hearing and allowed her release while she continues fighting her case, but her family needs to raise funds for the $1,800 bond and a fee for a Cancellation of Deportation application due by August 26.

Sylwester was detained by ICE in Pennsylvania on August 20, 2026, and is being held in a detention center away from his family in Brooklyn. His wife, Mariya, is raising funds for a licensed immigration attorney and an ICE bond ahead of his first court hearing scheduled for September 2, 2026. The family says they could not find pro bono legal help in Pennsylvania on short notice and describes Sylwester as the backbone of the family.

Paola Ferreira Dos Santos, a 21-year-old Brazilian national, was held in ICE detention for 15 months across two U.S. immigration facilities before being deported on a flight to Liberia on August 20, 2026, the only woman among a group of Latin American deportees. She said she was never told where she was being sent and only learned her destination when the plane landed in Monrovia, recalling being told, "Welcome to Liberia. You're in Africa." Dos Santos described conditions in detention as psychological torture, saying detainees, including pregnant women, were routinely denied medical care. She recounted witnessing a woman who pleaded for information about her separated son have her hands and ankles bound, saying "they tied her like she was cattle," and described being held for days without beds in a frigid room detainees called "the freezer."

One of the Cuban men diverted from a Liberia-bound deportation flight to Equatorial Guinea arrived in Malabo still restrained, according to Meredyth Yoon, litigation director at Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, who represents several of the group. The man has a serious abdominal condition requiring a colostomy bag that needs regular draining, but the hotel where he and roughly 40 other deportees are being held has no medical staff on site. Yoon described the scene as chaotic when the group arrived, with conditions at the facility reportedly worsening in recent months, including guards accused of withholding meals and, in some instances, choking or beating detainees.

Chief Magistrate Judge Scott T. Varholak ordered a habeas petitioner released after finding that ICE agents had violated an injunction issued by Senior Judge R. Brooke Jackson requiring agents to meet probable cause requirements before making warrantless arrests. Varholak wrote that the case was 'one in a series' in which the Department of Homeland Security 'appears to have simply ignored the law and detained an individual in violation of the law,' noting the government could not defend the decision. He set a hearing for September 10 for the government to address its 'apparent repeated violation of the law.'

Leonardo Sánchez Fernández, a 49-year-old Cuban lawful permanent U.S. resident from San Miguel del Padrón who had lived in Lehigh Acres, Florida, was deported by ICE to Equatorial Guinea under a third-country agreement despite holding valid residency until 2030. He had been detained by ICE at a gas station after a drug possession arrest and completing community service, then held at the Alligator Alcatraz facility before being flown for more than 36 hours from Alexandria, Louisiana without being told his destination. During a stopover in Liberia, witnesses said guards shoved him and he fell face-first onto the tarmac, aggravating a preexisting abdominal hernia and intestinal damage from an old stabbing injury and prior surgery. He is now hospitalized in Malabo receiving IV fluids without a passport, documents, consular assistance, toothbrush, or clothes, and may miss a scheduled surgery at Jackson Memorial Hospital. His mother Caridad and sister Dorty, in Lehigh Acres, learned of his location after seeing a video posted from Equatorial Guinea and have been trying to secure his release.

According to a viral social media post, ICE agents in the Pine Manor neighborhood of Fort Myers, Florida, grabbed several women, forced them onto pavement and against parked cars, and continued restraining them while a child stood nearby. The post claims agents threatened to shoot the women during the confrontation. The claims have not been independently verified by news sources.

Carlos Rodríguez López, a 35-year-old Cuban man who lived in Miami Gardens after 16 months in ICE detention, was placed on an August 20 deportation flight to Liberia under a U.S.-Liberia removal agreement. He and other detainees refused to disembark, arguing Liberia was not their country and would endanger them; Liberian authorities also refused to accept them. Instead of returning to the U.S. as expected, the plane was diverted to Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, where Rodríguez López and roughly 40 other deportees were met by masked police, searched, and taken to a hotel without passports or legal assistance. His wife, Igrayne Ribot Hernández, a U.S. citizen who runs a family business in Miami Gardens and has a nine-year-old daughter with him, said he had rebuilt his life after serving an 11-month sentence for a prior conviction and called the deportation to a country with no ties to him unlawful and inhumane. A habeas corpus petition filed in November 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana remains unresolved, and Rodríguez López told Univision by video call that he considers the diversion an illegal deportation.

Five people the U.S. attempted to deport to Liberia this week refused to leave the plane upon landing and were instead flown to Equatorial Guinea, according to sources familiar with the incident. The group included three Cuban men, one Brazilian man, and one Cameroonian woman, who were told they would be returned to the U.S. but were instead forced to disembark in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. They are now being held with more than 30 other migrants previously sent there under a similar third-country deportation deal, which human rights groups have criticized for poor conditions and lack of legal aid.

Federal immigration agents detained three men in a white Jeep in the Westcott neighborhood of Syracuse, stopping the vehicle in the 400 block of Westcott Street. Witnesses said two of the men complied with ICE agents, but the driver tried to flee and was tasered several times before being tackled by ICE agents. Syracuse police officers, who initially stopped to assist thinking it was a local warrant execution, backed off once they realized it was an ICE operation and later only wrote a crash report at ICE's request. The men, who have not been identified, were taken to ICE's Central New York headquarters in Mattydale; the incident is one of more than 80 similar detentions reported in Onondaga County in the first two-and-a-half months of the year.

A woman, identified by her daughter-in-law Yajaira Gutierrez as her mother-in-law, was arrested by ICE agents who surrounded her car in Santa Fe while a baby on oxygen was in the back seat. Family members said agents told them they would break the car's windows regardless of what they did and would take her anyway. Gutierrez said the family could only watch as their relative was taken away, adding that "everyone has rights, but apparently in this country they don't."

Liam Tadeo, a 5-year-old just days from starting kindergarten, was detained by ICE agents alongside his father, Victor Martinez Nieto, after federal agents stopped their vehicle in Austin, Texas, while the family was headed to a soccer game. Both were booked into the CoreCivic-operated South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, where DHS said they would remain together pending Martinez Nieto's removal. Attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch said Martinez Nieto begged ICE to release Liam to his mother, as was done for the boy's 3-year-old cousin and uncle detained in the same stop, but ICE refused. Liam's mother said she could not say goodbye to her son, that his bedroom remains untouched, and that the family wants them reunited. His aunt described him in a GoFundMe post as 'a beautiful, intelligent, and big-hearted little boy.' DHS said Martinez Nieto, a Mexican national, had previously accepted voluntary departure in February before reentering the U.S. without authorization. Fuerza Migrante called on Mexican authorities to intervene, while U.S. Rep. Greg Casar called for Liam's immediate release and closure of the Dilley facility, and U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro said ICE denied his request to visit the family. Members of Congress have said children at Dilley have been denied medical care, and an immigration attorney said Liam will likely remain there for weeks with an uncertain future.