Human Impact Project

Immigration attorneys and court observers say the closure of San Francisco's immigration court has overwhelmed the Concord court with new 'mega-master hearings' and scheduling changes that threaten due process. Devony Hodson, a migrant from Nicaragua, said her final hearing was abruptly moved from 2027 to this past July, giving her little time to prepare, though she has since received extensions to December 2028. The Executive Office for Immigration Review said scheduling changes are meant to prevent cases from languishing, while advocates and a local congressman question the rationale behind the court closure.

A Venezuelan man detained by an ICE agent on an Ogden street on Aug. 25 has been released after a federal judge in California ruled his detention unconstitutional, according to his attorney Sergio Garcia. The man, who came to the U.S. in 2022 and had applied for asylum and received a work permit, was held at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California before the judge granted his habeas petition. His arrest drew scrutiny after an Ogden police officer, who was responding to an unrelated call, became caught between the ICE agent and the man, and after a city councilman filmed part of the encounter. Garcia said the man still faces deportation and will now have to pursue his asylum case in immigration court rather than through USCIS.

Daury Baez Seri, a DACA recipient who grew up in Boston after arriving from the Dominican Republic at age six, was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection for more than 24 hours at Logan International Airport. He was returning from a gaming convention in Puerto Rico when his flight was diverted to Bermuda due to a medical emergency onboard, inadvertently turning a domestic flight into an international one. His attorney, Todd Pomerleau, said Baez Seri was not allowed to call a lawyer while detained and has no criminal record. He was released from custody late Wednesday evening.

Oscar Bracamontes Trinidad, a Medford, Oregon father of five, was detained by ICE agents while at work and later deported to Mexico. His wife, Margarita Bracamontes Torres, said she wasn't notified of his arrest until hours later, by which point he was already being transported to Tacoma, Washington, and said ICE paperwork falsely stated he was picked up at an ICE facility rather than his workplace. Oscar was held in Tacoma for about 30 days before being transferred to a detention facility in Natchez, Mississippi, making visits impossible; the family ultimately decided not to fight his case in detention, which could have taken six months to a year, and he returned to Mexico. Margarita said their children struggled emotionally during his detention, and she is now raising money to relocate the family to Mexico while they pursue an I-130 petition to return to the U.S.

Luis Arreguin, a 54-year-old Fresno-area man who came to the U.S. from Mexico as a child and has lived there for 49 years, was detained by ICE agents around 5 a.m. on October 1, 2026 while driving to work on Manning Avenue. His family says agents, in an unmarked vehicle, acted without a warrant based on a tip and were overheard joking about how many people they had caught that day. Arreguin, described by relatives as loving, hardworking, and the sole provider for his U.S. citizen wife and children, was in the process of obtaining citizenship before his arrest. He was transferred multiple times within ICE custody with little information provided to his family, eventually landing at a facility in McFarland, where he has suffered elevated blood pressure. His daughter, Elaina Salazar, said the arrest felt like a death in the family, and relatives held a candlelit vigil in Fresno on October 7. Arreguin has chosen to fight his case in court rather than accept deportation, and his family is raising money for attorney fees and related costs. His detention came amid a surge of roughly two dozen ICE arrests across Fresno and Madera counties that advocates have called an 'election surge.'

Melanie Tinoco, a 29-year-old mother of two from Ecuador who fled in 2024 after mafia threats, was arrested by Boston police at a Target over an alleged shoplifting incident her family calls a misunderstanding involving Uber Eats shopping. She has a pending asylum application, a valid work permit, and no prior criminal record. After being released from the District 4 police station, plainclothes ICE agents detained her outside without showing identification or a warrant, according to her husband Martin Gurfinkiel, who witnessed the arrest. She has since been held at the Burlington ICE processing center, where her family says agents injured her wrists and she has struggled to access her prescribed anxiety medication, reporting sleepless nights and panic attacks. Her husband is now caring alone for their two children, including a 7-year-old son with autism who has struggled emotionally without her. Her attorneys have filed a federal habeas petition seeking her release, citing her scheduled 2027 immigration court hearing and alleging a possible violation of Boston's Trust Act limiting police cooperation with ICE.

Christian Jimenez, a 17-year-old U.S. citizen and high school senior in McMinnville, Oregon, was detained by ICE officers on November 21, 2025, while driving off campus during his lunch break. Officers broke the driver's side window of his car after he told them he was a U.S. citizen; video reviewed by ProPublica captured the exchange, with an agent responding, "I don't care." Jimenez was held at ICE's facility in South Portland for nearly seven hours before being released around 7 p.m. DHS alleged Jimenez attacked officers with his vehicle, a claim disputed by his family and immigrant-justice groups, and authorities sought obstruction-related charges, with some reports differing on whether Jimenez or his brother was the intended target. The detention was one of four involving U.S. citizens in the Portland area that week, prompting a 300-student walkout and community protests over ICE tactics near schools.

Jose Mejia Hernandez, a 45-year-old Mexican immigrant who has lived in the U.S. for 18 years and works two jobs in commercial cleaning and office maintenance, was approached by plainclothes, masked ICE agents in an unmarked vehicle while walking to a bus stop near Columbia Pike in Arlington, Virginia on August 11. He fled, was shocked with a stun gun, and was struck by a vehicle, suffering two black eyes, facial lacerations, brain swelling, and a subarachnoid brain bleed. He was hospitalized for several days at George Washington University Hospital with ICE officers stationed in his room, and his attorneys say a hospital employee had to demand he be given a bed and an interpreter. He later returned for an MRI due to worsening symptoms and says an ankle monitor fitted by ICE delayed further medical testing, leaving him struggling to eat, sleep, speak normally, or work. His attorneys have filed a police report seeking criminal charges, notified federal agencies under the Federal Tort Claims Act, filed a $35 million excessive force claim, and are pursuing a U visa on his behalf. DHS disputes his account, saying officers used necessary force after he fled and citing a prior voluntary return to Mexico and a 2020 public intoxication conviction, and he has since been placed in deportation proceedings. Arlington County Police have opened an investigation, and Virginia officials including Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner and Reps. Don Beyer, Suhas Subramanyam and James Walkinshaw have criticized the circumstances of his arrest, which occurred during a broader ICE enforcement surge that led to roughly 1,300 arrests across the D.C. area in August.

Yasmani Noel Moreno de Armas, a 31-year-old Cuban who arrived in Florida by raft in 2016 under the 'Wet Foot, Dry Foot' policy and ran a small trucking business between Miami and Tampa to help support his parents near Orlando, was detained by ICE in West Palm Beach on May 11, 2025, after his green card bid under the Cuban Adjustment Act was denied. He was held for about a year before being deported in late July/August 2026 not to Cuba but to the Central African Republic on a roughly 21-22 hour shackled flight, learning his destination only hours into the trip. Moreno, who manages diabetes and asthma, said the flight left him ill and triggered an anxiety attack. He is now confined at the Maison Confort lodging in Bangui alongside migrants from Afghanistan, Vietnam and Russia, without a passport, visa or legal status, suffering stomach problems and allergies, and says he was kidnapped twice by armed men he believed were security forces, with family and a fellow detainee paying about $100 for his release. A Cuban embassy representative told him Cuba would not take him back because he left as a 'rafter' migrant, and he fears returning there given a past imprisonment for trying to flee. 'They brought us here illegally,' he said, adding his parents 'went crazy, crying and yelling' when he told them where he was; his attorney is negotiating with federal officials for his return.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who lived in Maryland with his U.S. citizen wife and young son who has autism, was arrested in Baltimore in March 2025 and deported to El Salvador's CECOT prison despite a 2019 court order protecting him from removal. US District Judge Paula Xinis ruled the government had 'no legal authority' to arrest, detain, or deport him, calling it a 'grievous error' that 'shocks the conscience,' and ordered his return; his lawyer denied any gang ties and said he had never been charged with a crime. Following public pressure and a Supreme Court order, he was returned to the U.S. in June 2025, after which federal prosecutors indicted him on human smuggling charges in Tennessee. Costa Rica offered him refugee status in August 2025, but the administration instead pursued deporting him to Liberia. A judge ordered his release from ICE custody in December 2025 after finding government lawyers misled the court, later blocking his re-detention and deportation to Liberia, and a federal judge dismissed the smuggling charges in May 2026 as a vindictive response to his legal challenges, a ruling the government is appealing. A hearing meant to determine whether he would be deported to Liberia was abruptly canceled, as his legal team seeks a permanent injunction and argues he should instead be sent to Costa Rica.

A farmworker who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation told the Los Angeles Times that he was pulled over by ICE officers while driving to work on Oct. 6 with three other people. He said the officers did not know his name, and when he declined to answer their questions about where he was born and when he crossed the border, they let him go.

Griselda, a mother known for feeding unhoused neighbors and volunteering with the El Sereno Bicentennial Committee, was detained by ICE at a USCIS center on October 6 while attending a scheduled immigration appointment. Her sudden detention has separated her from her children, who are now facing loss of income and emotional stress. A GoFundMe campaign was organized to cover legal fees, living costs, and healthcare support for her family while she fights for release.

Approximately 500 detainees at the GEO Group-run Folkston ICE Processing Center in Charlton County, Georgia, launched a hunger strike protesting poor living conditions and alleged violations of asylum protocols while they await judicial hearings, according to family members, legal representatives, and detainee accounts. Attorney Samantha Hamilton of Asian Americans Advancing Justice Atlanta said about 372 men in the facility's F building and K5 pod are striking, along with an estimated 150 more in other buildings, with the protest timed ahead of an Oct. 6 facility inspection. Detainees reported undrinkable water causing rashes and hair loss, inadequate food, sleep conditions and medical care, and said many have been held for months or years despite following legal asylum procedures. The facility, where a detainee died in 2024 after what ICE's own report called inadequate medical care, is being expanded under a $47 million contract to become the largest permanent ICE detention center in the country.

Jeffrey Jarquín, 35, a Nicaraguan exile who was a prominent figure in the 2018 anti-government protests against President Daniel Ortega, was deported from the U.S. to Nicaragua and immediately imprisoned at El Modelo, the same maximum-security prison where he had previously been tortured. Jarquín had fled to Miami seeking asylum but was arrested in February on an assault charge that was later dismissed; while still in custody, immigration agents began deportation proceedings, and his asylum claim was denied by an immigration judge in Louisiana in July. Advocates said Jarquín had agreed to be deported but asked to be sent to a third country rather than Nicaragua. His U.S. lawyer, Osley Sallent, confirmed the deportation, and a family member said he was taken straight to the prison upon landing in Managua. Activist Muriel Sáenz said the U.S. had sent him 'back into the hands of his tormentors.'

ICE agents reportedly detained a vanload of farm workers in California's Central Valley on Tuesday morning, part of a series of recent enforcement actions carried out across multiple cities.

ICE agents arrested approximately 10 people on the morning of October 6, 2026, in downtown Lake Hiawatha, a section of Parsippany, New Jersey, including landscapers and a restaurant worker who had lived in New Jersey for nearly 20 years. A resident said she witnessed masked, armed ICE agents in at least four vehicles blocking in a truck from a local landscaping company on North Beverwyck Road at about 7:45 a.m. during rush hour. Parsippany Mayor Pulkit Desai said local officials received no advance notice of the operation and were working to locate the families of those detained, while the Township Council discussed taking 'more aggressive and protective' measures for residents.

A whistleblower complaint from former FBI supervisory intelligence analyst Jill Fields alleges that Donald Trump directed the FBI to investigate protesters demonstrating against ICE operations in Los Angeles in February 2025. The complaint claims a dedicated 10-agent squad was formed to investigate protesters even after agents determined their activities were constitutionally protected. Fields says she was later removed from oversight roles and resigned, believing it was retaliation for objecting to the investigations.

In the unincorporated West Park community near Fresno, ICE agents detained several people, including a man taken into custody outside Saber's Mart/Market at Prospect and Jensen avenues, and a group of people—described as a man and woman by one source and four men and a woman by another—detained outside a home on Prospect Avenue as they arrived home from work. Resident Rose Arellano said she watched agents take the individuals without asking about immigration status, saying, "Nobody should have to go through our city in fear of randomly being taken simply because of the color of their skin." Resident Selina Castillo recorded cellphone video of the detentions near her mother's house. The West Park School District sent a notice to families stating it would not share immigration status information with authorities and asked parents to meet children at bus stops. Volunteers with the Valley Watch Network said they regularly assist families of detained individuals and people released from the Fresno ICE facility, amid a broader surge of ICE activity across Fresno and Madera counties.

A van transporting farmworkers from Selma to their jobs in Bakersfield was stopped by ICE agents on Tuesday morning, and everyone aboard was taken into custody, according to the Valley Watch Network, a rapid response group that tracks ICE arrests and assists detained individuals' families. The stop was part of a reported surge of roughly two dozen ICE arrests across Fresno and Madera counties that week, which advocates said involved roving patrols and traffic stops at places frequented by farmworkers and landscapers.

Maria Susana Esquivel Huezo, a Salvadoran woman married to U.S. citizen Rodney Brown, was arrested by Everett police during an August domestic dispute and taken to the Everett jail, where she was told she could be picked up the next morning. Instead, ICE took her into custody within hours and transferred her to a facility in Burlington, Massachusetts, then to a detention center in Louisiana the next day, and to Arizona a week later. Brown said his wife has lived in the U.S. for nearly 10 years, holds a valid work authorization card and Social Security number, has a pending asylum claim, and has regularly checked in with ICE. A source familiar with the investigation said ICE may have been alerted after her fingerprints were entered into the system following her local arrest. ICE said she was ordered removed by an immigration judge on October 2, 2026, and disputed Brown's characterization of her immigration status, while an immigration attorney not involved in the case noted that holding a work permit indicates she had already undergone a background check as part of a lawful asylum process. Brown has spent thousands of dollars on attorneys trying to keep his family together.