Human Impact Project

Gregory Sanabria Tarazona, a Venezuelan asylum seeker and former political prisoner who endured years in detention in Venezuela, was arrested by ICE during a routine check-in in Houston weeks before his scheduled asylum hearing. He was taken to an ICE processing center despite holding a valid work permit while his asylum case was pending. Amnesty International called for his release, and a Republican congressman formally wrote to the Department of Homeland Security requesting intervention on his behalf.

Nayeli, a 25-year-old Honduran woman with a pending asylum case, was arrested by plainclothes ICE agents at the Carroll County District Court in Westminster, Maryland, as she waited to contest theft charges filed by her former employer over a $12.08 McDonald's purchase made accidentally on his company credit card. The agents did not identify themselves, and her mother said they only announced 'ICE, she needs to go with me' before handcuffing Nayeli and taking her away; the judge overseeing the case told Nayeli's attorney 'It's not my hallway' when informed of the arrest. The theft charges, which a prosecutor had already offered to pause, were dismissed because Nayeli could not appear, but she remained in ICE detention in Virginia two weeks later. Nayeli, who is authorized to work in the U.S. and entered the country with her mother in 2019 to pursue asylum, said, 'I'm trying to be as positive as I can, but I mean, of course, this is not my home.'

Qingfang Pang, a 6-foot-9 junior forward for Mississippi Valley State University who is from China, was detained by ICE at an airport in Jackson, Mississippi while trying to fly to New York to meet his visa sponsor on September 29. His attorney, Marcus Session, said Pang had recently learned his student visa had expired. DHS said Pang entered the U.S. legally in November 2023 on a temporary status that expired in September 2024 and that he accepted voluntary departure, but Session disputes this, claiming ICE made Pang sign the voluntary departure document, and is now seeking bond. Pang is being held at Richwood Correctional Center in Louisiana, and Mississippi Valley State University said it is 'deeply concerned' for his well-being.

Adrián Higareda Ceja, 43, originally from Michoacán, Mexico, was surrounded and taken into custody by ICE agents last Friday while dropping off his two children at Edison Elementary School in Phoenix. His children, ages 7 and 8, witnessed the arrest, with his young daughter reportedly pleading with agents not to take her father. His wife said she believes agents may have targeted the wrong person. The school district confirmed the detention occurred outside the campus. Higareda Ceja is currently held at the Florence detention center in Arizona.

Jose Felipe Pacheco Bautista, a 21-year-old Fruitland Park man, was stopped by Leesburg police after radar showed his truck traveling 51 mph in a 45-mph zone on State Road 44 and Whitney Road. He and another occupant fled on foot while the vehicle was still rolling, and Pacheco Bautista was apprehended shortly after and charged with resisting an officer without violence. He was booked into the Lake County Jail, where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement placed a hold on him.

Monica Ryadi, a 30-year-old nurse from Delaware County, Pennsylvania, was detained by ICE agents at Los Angeles International Airport on September 15, 2026, as she arrived with her husband, Steven Sary, and their 3-year-old son for a family trip to Disneyland. Ryadi came to the U.S. from Indonesia as a child fleeing religious persecution and was granted Withholding of Removal in 2010, which had allowed her to maintain work authorization, a Social Security number, a REAL ID, and buy a home. Court filings state officers handcuffed and shackled her around her ankles and waist and threatened to place her son in child protective services when her husband protested; her attorney said she was never given a warrant or documentation explaining her arrest. DHS maintained she had overstayed a visa and received a final removal order in 2010, while her attorney disputed that characterization, saying she was lawfully present. After about two weeks in custody at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, a U.S. magistrate judge ordered her released on September 29 under an alternative-to-detention program requiring GPS monitoring, and she was reunited with her husband and son that night while her attorney pursues legal steps toward permanent status.

Musa Sheriff, a Liberian citizen who was admitted to the U.S. as a refugee in 1999, has been held since ICE arrested him on March 2, 2025 at a scheduled check-in, after facing deportation over a criminal threatening charge filed five years after his arrival. He is detained in the ICE section of the Federal Correctional Institution at Lewisburg, and in August filed a habeas petition arguing his prolonged 19-month detention violated his due process rights. U.S. Middle District Judge Matthew W. Brann ruled in his favor, finding his confinement conditions were indistinguishable from criminal punishment, and ordered the government to release him on his own recognizance or provide an individualized bond hearing by October 9.

Julian Curo-Churata, a 47-year-old man from Peru, died in ICE custody on September 29, 2026, pronounced dead at 4:01 a.m. at Ochsner LSU Health Monroe Medical Center in Monroe, Louisiana. He was arrested by ERO Baltimore during a targeted enforcement operation on June 27, 2026, and later transferred to ERO New Orleans custody, where he was held at Richwood Correctional Center. After being found in medical distress, he was taken to the hospital around 8:14 p.m. on September 28; the cause of death has not yet been determined pending an autopsy. An immigration judge had denied his applications for relief and voluntary departure on September 18, 2026, after which he reserved his right to appeal; ICE notified his spouse, attorney, and the Consulate General of Peru, as well as the DHS Office of Inspector General and ICE's Office of Professional Responsibility, following his death.

A man identified by the initials OBP, a Mexican citizen previously removed from the U.S. in 2022, was approached by Border Patrol agents near Washtenaw Avenue and Pittsfield Boulevard in Ann Arbor on the night of May 28. He fled, tripped, and struck his face on the pavement, sustaining cuts and a contusion, and was taken to Trinity Health Ann Arbor Hospital for treatment while remaining in custody. Nurse Chloe Renae Freeman, 33, has been criminally charged with helping him escape after allegedly directing staff to keep him in a CT scan room, removing his IV, and guiding him out through the ambulance bay doors. Freeman told investigators she disagreed with ICE's practice of separating families and acknowledged the man could have died from his untreated injuries. He has not been located since his disappearance.

A 40-year-old Filipino man, the son of a slain Filipino radio broadcaster, was detained by US immigration authorities on September 21 after returning to Los Angeles from a music performance in Chicago. He is being held at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center and is scheduled for a hearing on the eve of the fourth anniversary of his father's 2022 killing. He arrived in the US in February 2023, holds work authorization, and had sought asylum after receiving death threats following his father's murder. The Philippine consulate in Los Angeles has conducted a welfare visit, and Ambassador Jose Manuel Romualdez said the consulate is coordinating with the family's lawyers.

Frank Duran, a Cargill meat plant worker in Dodge City, and his 20-year-old daughter Guadalupe Navarrete, who works at National Beef in Liberal, were pulled over by an ICE vehicle with sirens while driving home from work in southwest Kansas. An officer approached Navarrete, who was driving, demanding identification but did not respond when she asked if he had a warrant or why they were stopped. Both are U.S. citizens who have lived in Kansas their entire lives, and Navarrete was left shaking and crying after the officer scanned her identification. She told her father, "We're both born here in Kansas. We're legal citizens, Dad. They profiled us." Duran said he believed they had been racially profiled. They were not detained and were allowed to leave after the stop, which occurred amid a broader ICE enforcement action targeting meat processing plants in the region.

An Iranian woman in her early 30s who fled Iran after converting to Christianity was detained by ICE and ultimately deported to the Central African Republic, a country she had never visited and that the U.S. government warns citizens to avoid due to violent crime and civil war. She entered the U.S. without authorization at the southern border in 2024 and had settled in Atlanta before being held at Stewart Detention Center in South Georgia. Speaking to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution after learning of the planned deportation, she said, "I just started shaking. I was just so scared. I don't have anyone (over) there. I don't know the language, or anything." She was deported only three days after her arrest, one of the few Iranian nationals removed since fighting between the U.S. and Iran began, as deportations of Iranians have otherwise nearly halted because Iran and other countries have been unwilling to issue travel documents.

Mamadou Fadel Cherif, 56, a West Oak Lane man who fled political persecution in Guinea after being jailed for protesting the 1998 presidential election, was arrested by ICE on July 13 as he left his home. Nearly 20 years earlier he had been granted Withholding of Removal, which bars his deportation to Guinea, and he has no criminal record. Cherif works legally as a dining services employee at La Salle College High School and as an Uber driver, and is the primary financial support for his wife, a green card holder, and their four American-born sons, one of whom is a Marines reservist. His employer described him as "an extremely hard worker" whom students and staff love. His attorney filed a federal court petition seeking his immediate release, arguing there is no likelihood of third-country deportation and that he was denied due process. As of September 2026, Cherif remains in detention while the Trump administration seeks to deport him to Ghana, a country to which he has no reported ties.

Salah Sarsour, 53, president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee and a lawful permanent resident for over 32 years, was detained by ICE on March 30, 2026, after armed plainclothes agents pulled him over in unmarked vehicles near Milwaukee. He is married to a U.S. citizen, has six U.S. citizen children, and has no U.S. criminal record. DHS alleged he lied on his 1998 green card application by omitting convictions from an Israeli military court when he was a minor, which Sarsour says were coerced under torture, and also alleged he was suspected of funding terror organizations. He was held 80 days at Clay County Jail in Indiana, where his unmonitored diabetes worsened, he faced religious liberty restrictions and inadequate medical care, and lost over 30 pounds. His attorneys, including the Muslim Legal Fund of America, argued he was targeted for his Palestinian background and advocacy, noting authorities had known of his prior convictions for 25 years. On June 18, 2026, U.S. District Judge James Patrick Hanlon ordered his release, finding ICE likely detained him in retaliation for his Palestinian rights advocacy. Despite this, an immigration judge later ruled in September that Sarsour can be deported under a cold-war era law, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio citing his activism as grounds for removal; his attorneys plan to continue fighting the case.

An Illinois woman caring for a 5-year-old boy whose father had been deported to Mexico became so financially strapped that she lost her housing; she sent the child to sleep at a friend's apartment while she lived in her car. The Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights eventually persuaded ICE to transport the boy to his father in Mexico, but first had to send the caregiver $20 in gas money so the child could be handed off.

Two mothers in Florida — a man's girlfriend and her sister — were detained by ICE, leaving five children, including a six-month-old, in the man's care. He had to quit his job to look after the children, none of whom were his own, and was left with no income to pay for food and diapers, according to the Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights, which tried to support the family.

A St. Louis mother with no criminal history was detained by ICE three months postpartum, while still breastfeeding, despite an ICE policy against detaining breastfeeding mothers outside "exceptional circumstances." ICE ignored the Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights' request to release her under the policy. It took days for social workers to set up an account on the detainee tablet system so she could message her family, and she went weeks without even seeing her infant.

A mother named Lucía spent three months at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center without seeing her 14-month-old and 3-year-old children before being deported. She said it was excruciating not being able to explain to the children why she was gone: "They're babies. They don't understand." She said most of the women detained around her were in similar situations — "In this room where I am, there are 56 of us, and the majority are moms" — with some children staying with a spouse and others with extended relatives or acquaintances.

A Honduran father who worked in construction in the Dallas suburbs was detained without explanation in January 2026 when his family attended a routine ICE check-in. The family had requested asylum at the border in 2022 after gang members, wrongly believing his wife had testified against a killer, murdered a young woman they likely mistook for her. Transferred from Texas to a Mississippi detention center, he learned from ICE's online portal that he was being deported for allegedly skipping a court appointment he had not been given the chance to attend, and he was removed to Honduras, where the gang patrols his village. His wife, who cleans buildings at night, skipped her next ICE check-in and moved apartments without telling the government to avoid being separated from their 12-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son; the father now watches the children by video call from Honduras while she works. The son asks visitors when his father is coming home and waits at the window each afternoon for his truck.

Magdalena Callejas had full custody of her 4- and 6-year-old children and a pending visa application when she was arrested at a Border Patrol checkpoint in Texas in March 2024. She says ICE officials told her the agency "did not do that" when she asked to be reunited with her children, so she agreed to leave the country voluntarily, hoping to recover them once she reached El Salvador. Her undocumented ex-partner — who had multiple DUIs and against whom she held a restraining order for abusing her and her son — took the children and filed for custody while she was detained. After a months-long trial, a judge ordered the children returned to her in El Salvador following a 30-day stay and renewed her five-year restraining order, but when the children's neutral caregiver quit, the judge ordered the father to care for them until a pro bono lawyer with Public Counsel could arrange volunteers to transport them.