Human Impact Project

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.

Ubaldo Marquez Calderon, 67, was a longtime De Soto, Kansas resident known for biking around town collecting aluminum cans and feeding stray cats at a trailer park every morning. ICE detained him on September 13 at a Casey's gas station near the local high school and held him at the CoreCivic-run Midwest Regional Reception Center in Leavenworth. His attorney, Chad Sublet, said Calderon signed a voluntary departure document he did not understand, and while detained he developed a urinary tract infection after being denied water. After more than 20 years living in the U.S. with no criminal record, Calderon was removed to Mexico, arriving around September 28. De Soto community members paid for his flight to Jalisco, and neighbors described him as a 'staple in the community,' saying the town feels 'pretty broken' without him.

Angel, a 13-year-old unaccompanied migrant boy from Honduras, appeared without an attorney at a deportation hearing in immigration court in Harlingen, Texas. He told the judge that his mother and most of his family live in the United States and that returning to Honduras would be dangerous, but the judge ruled he did not qualify for asylum. Crying, Angel said he had "no one" and "nothing," and the judge gave him until the end of the month to appeal his deportation order. Dozens of other migrant children, some as young as 2, appeared in the same court without legal representation. Advocates say his case reflects a broader pattern of unaccompanied children nationwide facing an accelerated, confusing immigration process after the Trump administration ended funding for legal service programs for migrant children.

ICE agents arrested Emilio Osorio-Osorio, a Guatemalan national, in Baltimore. The agency described him as having a criminal history including homicide and assault. Osorio-Osorio will remain in ICE custody while removal proceedings move forward.

A Venezuelan man identified only as Y was stopped by immigration officers at Phoenix Sky Harbor airport, who he said would not tell him why he was being arrested or accept his proof of a judicial order expressly prohibiting his deportation to Venezuela. Four days later he was placed on a deportation flight to Venezuela, but was deboarded just before takeoff after ICE officers admitted they may have made a mistake.

ICE's Dallas field office conducted a summer-long enforcement operation around Lake Lewisville, Texas, running from June 27 through Labor Day weekend, resulting in 121 arrests. The operation was carried out with state and local partners, including the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, U.S. Marshals Service and Lewisville Police Department, allowing local agencies to focus on boating safety enforcement while also supporting investigations into an alleged illegal livery operation on the lake. Officials said those arrested were unlawfully present foreign nationals, many with prior criminal records including assault, theft, burglary, DWI, evading arrest, family violence, criminal mischief and sexual assault of a child, and that two were alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang. During one arrest, officers said they found a 13-year-old girl in a vehicle with Diego Gomez Hernandez, 22, a Mexican national; her legal guardian was contacted and Lewisville police opened a follow-up investigation under Texas law.

Three undocumented brothers from Honduras, who shared an apartment in New Bedford and worked in construction and as laborers, were detained by ICE agents while doing their family's weekly grocery run at a Market Basket. Their sister-in-law Maria said federal vehicles surrounded the men as they arrived, and agents were 'pretty aggressive' toward the brother who was driving, twisting his arm behind his back. The family says none of the three have criminal records, and one had lived in the U.S. for 14 years. Maria described the brothers as 'hardworking and very kind' men who doted on their baby niece, and said their elderly mother has been especially distressed by the detentions. The brothers are being held at Plymouth's ICE detention center.

Deng Dhieu Kuach Deng, a 19-year-old freshman basketball player at Southern Connecticut State University from Aweil, South Sudan, was approached and handcuffed by plainclothes ICE agents at a TSA checkpoint at Tweed New Haven Airport on September 4, 2026, while attempting to board a domestic flight to visit his girlfriend in North Carolina. Security footage showed agents escorting him to an SUV as protesters followed, with one agent appearing to push a female protester filming the arrest. A witness described the officers as 'very aggressive.' Deng had a pending asylum application and valid work authorization; his attorneys, Glenn Formica and Steven Strom, filed a habeas corpus petition alleging an officer falsely claimed he had violated Temporary Protected Status he never held and that his Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights were violated, while ICE claimed he had overstayed his legal entry. He was held at the Wyatt Detention Facility in Rhode Island, which Formica said involved sleeping on cement floors with foil blankets and broken toilets. Following advocacy from attorneys, university community members, New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker, and a student protest demanding the school protect students from on-campus ICE presence, Deng was released on September 16. Sen. Richard Blumenthal called the detention unnecessary and illegal and sought an investigation into the regional ICE field office.

Carol Black (also referred to as Carol Williams Black), a Jamaican-born lawful permanent resident who had lived in New York since 1983, was detained by ICE in 2019 for roughly seven months without receiving a bond hearing. The detention stemmed from a 2000 sex abuse conviction for which he had already completed probation. Unable to secure a bond hearing while deportation proceedings continued, Black filed a federal habeas petition arguing the prolonged detention violated his constitutional due process rights. While his case was pending, he sold his home and business and voluntarily left the United States after 40 years of residency. His case reached the Supreme Court, which was set to decide whether ICE can detain lawful permanent residents indefinitely without bond hearings, but the case became moot after he received a final removal order and left the country, prompting the Court to shift its review to a different detainee's case.

The father of a student at a Seattle-area school was detained by ICE earlier this week while on his way to work and is now being held at the Northwest Detention Center. His partner, who is pregnant, is caring for their children, including a toddler, while facing the sudden loss of the family's income. A fellow parent at the school organized a fundraiser to help cover the family's rent, groceries, utilities, and other essentials, as well as the father's commissary account and potential legal costs.

D.C., a 62-year-old Dominican citizen who entered the U.S. without authorization, has been held by ICE since September 2025 after completing a state prison sentence tied to a 1998 drug conviction, along with earlier convictions for possessing a forged instrument, a domestic assault, and criminal contempt. A district court ordered that he receive a bond hearing under Second Circuit precedent requiring hearings when mandatory detention becomes 'unreasonably prolonged,' but denied his request for immediate release. The Supreme Court has now agreed to hear the Trump administration's appeal in the case, Genalo v. D.C., to decide whether the government must prove by clear and convincing evidence that he poses a flight risk or danger to remain in custody; the case is part of a broader dispute over a July 2025 policy mandating detention for immigrants in deportation proceedings.