Human Impact Project

ICE transferred 20-year-old Cristofer Ortega from New Jersey to a detention center in Louisiana despite having an approved legal pathway to citizenship through Special Immigrant Juvenile Status. Ortega, who arrived in the U.S. at age 9 and has no criminal record, was detained after an encounter while completing his HVAC certification. ICE is planning to deport him to Honduras before he can apply for his green card.

Alireza Doroudi, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering at the University of Alabama from Iran, was detained by ICE agents on March 25, 2025, around 3-5 a.m. at his home after the State Department revoked his F-1 student visa. Doroudi had entered the U.S. in January 2023 and his visa was revoked six months after arrival, though university international student services advised he could remain legally if he maintained student status. DHS cited national security concerns as the basis for the detention and visa revocation, but provided no specific allegations. Doroudi's immigration attorney stated he is unaware of any such concerns. He is being held at the Jena/LaSalle Detention Facility in Louisiana.

An Instagram post reports that ICE detained a working father in San Diego, leaving behind his family and a two-month-old baby.

Sergio Garcia Silva, a 65-year-old chef who lived in the United States for 36 years, was deported to Mexico by ICE on March 25, 2025, after being arrested at his food truck in Waco. He had no criminal record aside from a two-decade-old deportation order for illegal re-entry that had never previously been enforced; his restaurant, El Siete Mares, had once catered a breakfast for President George W. Bush's White House press corps. After deportation, he was held captive by an extortion group in Mexico and was later apprehended by Border Patrol while attempting to return, resulting in a second deportation in June 2025. The ordeal separated him from his four U.S.-born children, though his wife, Sandra, later reunited with him in her hometown of Monterrey.

Franyeli Carolina Zambrano Manrique, 30, a Venezuelan with Temporary Protected Status, was arrested on February 8, 2025 during a traffic stop in Utah with her husband. Despite having valid TPS status, ICE officers accused them both of gang membership based on tattoos and refused to accept their denials. She was transferred to Henderson detention center in Nevada, then deported on March 15, 2025 despite a federal judge's order halting deportations. She was told she was being flown to Venezuela but was instead taken to El Salvador, where she was kept on the plane and sent back to the United States the same day. She was later deported to Venezuela on April 5, 2025, but her husband remains detained at CECOT in El Salvador.

An undocumented Maryland mother whose teenage son died of cancer while she was in ICE custody has requested deportation to Mexico. Officials did not release Martinez-Carrada in time to see her son before his death in late January, though she was permitted to attend his funeral.

At least 15 people were detained this week through targeted arrests conducted by ICE agents in Southern California. The post credits advocacy organizations for their continued support of reporting on immigration enforcement activities.

Julio Vargas, a coconut vendor in El Corredor Salvadoreño, was detained by immigration officers two months prior to the article's publication without a stated reason or warrant. He has since been released and returned to his work selling coconuts at the same location.

Jorge was detained by ICE on March 23 when he arrived for a scheduled biometrics appointment as part of his U visa application, a pathway to legal status for crime victims. According to his wife, staff delayed him, told him to wait, and then contacted immigration authorities. ICE agents entered and detained him immediately. Jorge has no criminal record and is a survivor of gun violence. He is currently held at Delaney Hall, a privately run immigration detention facility in Newark, and has not received an initial court date to determine if his detention is lawful.

Nine members of a Queens church music ministry were detained by ICE during a traffic stop on their return trip from an out-of-state church event. While in detention, they signed documents for voluntary departure to Guatemala. All nine were primary breadwinners who left behind spouses and young children.

Rubén González, a Venezuelan national with pending asylum who entered the U.S. in 2022, was detained by ICE on March 22 following a traffic accident in Clermont, Florida. González had valid temporary documentation, work authorization, and regular legal status at the time of the incident. After police reviewed his documents at the accident scene, he was transferred to ICE custody and taken to an immigration detention facility in Jacksonville. Human rights organizations and immigration attorneys have since questioned the legality of detaining someone with active protected status immediately following a traffic accident.

Three migrants died during two separate incidents while attempting to cross the southern border near Otay Mountain Wilderness in San Diego County during severe winter weather. The first incident involved an adult woman who made a distress call and was found alive alongside a deceased woman; the second involved a 16-year-old girl who survived and two deceased men, one her father. Both groups had crossed into the U.S. illegally and faced extreme cold, rain, and snow.

A 24-year-old Venezuelan man, Gustavo Alfonso Garcia Olivares, drowned in the Rio Grande while attempting to enter the United States.

Asad Esmaeily, a 35-year-old Iranian political activist, was detained and tortured by Iranian authorities for organizing protests and distributing materials opposing the regime—officials fractured the bone above his eyebrow and subjected him to waterboarding. He fled Iran with his pregnant wife, Farzaneh Nazi, traveling through South and Central America and arriving at the U.S. border on March 20, 2025. Nazi was released on parole due to her pregnancy, but Esmaeily remained in ICE detention. His asylum claim was denied, and his case is being appealed through an immigration court system that has denied relief to hundreds of others.

ICE began moving a person named Cristofer from Strafford County Jail in New Hampshire to Louisiana, which is described as a deportation flight hub for ICE. Advocates are urging constituents to contact Senators Andy Kim and Cory Booker demanding his immediate return and release.

ICE detained two teenagers in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania on March 20 while they were riding their bikes to work. Coraopolis police stopped the teenagers and may have called ICE to detain them around 9:00 AM. Frontline DIGNITY shared the report to support community awareness and preparedness.

On March 19, ICE and Border Patrol agents conducted a multi-person enforcement operation in the parking lot of a market in Christiansted, St. Croix. Video footage showed agents subduing a man on the pavement with one agent appearing to have his knee on the man's head and neck. Delegate to Congress Stacey Plaskett commented on the enforcement action and the manner in which it was carried out.

An Iraqi citizen and national was detained by ICE on March 18, 2025 after serving sentences for felony firearm possession and assault convictions. He was informed he would be deported to Iraq pursuant to an administrative removal order, but claimed he could not return due to fears of torture. Despite an initial credible fear finding, an Immigration Judge denied his Convention Against Torture relief and ordered his removal to Iraq on November 20, 2025. The court granted his habeas petition and ordered his immediate release from immigration detention.

José Eliezer Martínez-Andino, a Honduran man with Special Immigrant Juvenile Status and a work permit who crossed into the U.S. alone at 14 in 2020 and later settled in Raleigh, North Carolina, working as a mechanic, was stopped by Border Patrol agents on March 18, 2026, in Montana while traveling toward Seattle over an alleged forged license plate. He signed a voluntary departure form he says he tried to retract while being shuttled between detention facilities in Montana and Arizona; his attorney, Alison Chan, filed notice of representation on March 31 but could not get ICE or CBP to disclose his location before he was deported on April 10 to his birth city of Tela, Honduras, separating him from his 3-year-old U.S.-citizen daughter and family in Raleigh. A federal judge later ordered the government to bring him back, but when he returned in August he was sent to an ICE detention facility in Texas rather than home, and DHS has filed a new removal case against him.

Frontline Dignity documented two ICE detentions in Cranberry Township on the morning of March 17, with the Butler County Sheriff's Office assisting. The first occurred around 9 a.m. in a parking lot near Cranberry Square, outside the Walmart Supercenter and Harbor Freight, where a man was arrested and placed into a van. The second took place around 10 a.m. outside Felson Apartments on Brandt Drive, near Costco, where a man was detained as sheriff's vehicles were present. The incidents are part of a monthslong partnership between ICE and the sheriff's office, which a recent news release said has resulted in 36 arrests since November.