Human Impact Project

A ProPublica analysis found that immigration fraud complaints to the FTC have doubled since Trump returned to office, with nearly 2,000 reports in 2025 alone and at least $94.4 million stolen. Scammers use AI-generated photos and social media ads to impersonate immigration lawyers, ICE agents, judges, and nonprofit officials, targeting immigrants fearful of deportation. Victims pay thousands for fake legal services and fraudulent documents, with cases including a woman deported to Nicaragua after paying $10,000 to a fake attorney and a college student scammed out of $4,000.

Houston-area school districts have lost approximately 8,300 immigrant students and 18,000 emergent bilingual students since the previous year, with some districts losing as many as one in five immigrant students. The decline is attributed to increased federal immigration enforcement, with students either deported, forced to work after family detention, or staying home out of fear of encountering immigration officials. The losses have forced school closures, program cuts, and financial hardship across districts.

Denny Adan Gonzalez, a 33-year-old Cuban national, was found unresponsive in his cell at Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, on April 28, 2026, at approximately 10:25 p.m. and pronounced dead at 11:11 p.m. ICE reported the suspected cause as suicide, though the official cause remained under investigation. Gonzalez had been in solitary confinement following an alleged altercation with a staff member the day before. He had arrived at a U.S. port of entry in 2019, was deported in 2020, re-entered without authorization in 2022, and was transferred to Stewart in January 2026 after arrest in North Carolina on assault and domestic violence charges. Immigration advocates, his mother Lourdes González Suárez, and U.S. Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock called for independent investigation and improved transparency regarding ICE custody deaths.

A federal judge heard arguments in a lawsuit alleging inhumane conditions at Adelanto ICE Processing Center, where approximately 2,000 immigrants are detained. Plaintiffs claim detainees face squalid conditions, unsanitary food, dirty water, delayed medical care, and retaliatory solitary confinement. The judge expressed concern but delayed ruling on the request for emergency relief, suggesting plaintiffs may need to refile with additional defendants named.

According to data obtained by UC Berkeley's Deportation Data Project, ICE arrested 6,374 people in North Carolina between January 2025 and March 10, 2026—nearly double the number arrested during the previous two years combined. Arrests peaked in November 2025 during a CBP operation called "Charlotte's Web" in the Charlotte area, though analysis found most arrestees had no prior criminal convictions despite official claims of targeting the "worst of the worst."

The Trump administration is rapidly expanding ICE detention infrastructure by acquiring over 20 warehouses to be converted into detention facilities under a "Detention Re-engineering Initiative." The expansion would increase detention capacity to 96,600 people despite a record number of deaths in ICE custody—17 deaths in 2026 alone and over 40 since the start of the mass deportation campaign. The article documents preventable deaths from medical neglect and unsafe conditions, while highlighting community resistance efforts to block construction of new detention facilities.

The Board of Immigration Appeals ruled that immigration judges cannot terminate deportation proceedings solely based on a person's active DACA status. The ruling involved Catalina Santiago, a DACA recipient arrested by CBP at El Paso International Airport in August 2025 while boarding a domestic flight. The decision, which sides with the Department of Homeland Security, sends Santiago's case back for further review and could potentially affect thousands of other DACA recipients.

An article describing increased immigration enforcement scrutiny at U.S. airports, noting that over 800 people were arrested between 2025 and 2026 after being identified through passenger data shared by TSA with ICE. The article advises immigrants with work permits, DACA, or pending migration cases to consult with attorneys before traveling, as even those with legal status or pending applications face heightened risk of detention during air travel.

Hundreds of detained immigrants in Michigan were granted bond after suing the federal government, but high bond amounts and government appeals are preventing many from being released. Immigration judges have discretion in setting bond amounts, with some set as high as $50,000, making it difficult for families to afford release even when courts rule detention unlawful.

Georgia has become a top-5 state for federal immigration arrests since President Trump's return to office, with more arrests than higher-profile enforcement operations in Minnesota. The article reports on enforcement data and includes a case study of a Guatemalan couple detained in Carroll County.

Community groups across Arizona organized protests against ICE detention plans, with over 250 residents demonstrating in Surprise on April 26, 2026, against a planned ICE processing facility at an industrial warehouse. The facility is designed to hold undocumented immigrants for three to seven days before transfer, with 542 beds and potential expansion to 1,500 capacity, expected to begin operations in fall 2026. Protesters raised concerns about proximity to schools and the surrounding Hispanic community. One day prior, on April 25, 2026, the Arizona Attorney General filed a lawsuit to block the project, arguing that ICE bypassed environmental reviews and community input requirements. Community organizers called for due process protections.

Documents obtained by Congressman Dan Goldman show that more than half of approximately 176 immigrant detainees held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn have no criminal record, with fewer than 24 percent having criminal convictions. The facility, which began holding ICE detainees in 2025 as part of a DHS-Bureau of Prisons agreement, has never undergone an ICE compliance inspection despite housing detainees for extended periods averaging 52 days.

A federal appeals court lifted a temporary injunction blocking Texas Senate Bill 4, a 2023 law authorizing state police to arrest people suspected of entering the country without authorization. The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the plaintiffs—immigration advocacy groups and El Paso County—lacked legal standing to challenge the law, without addressing the underlying constitutional questions about whether states can enforce immigration law. The ruling allows the state law to take effect.

Hundreds of rallies are planned nationwide on Saturday as part of the 'Communities Not Cages National Day of Action' to protest ICE's detention expansion. The protests target ICE's plans to construct eight new detention centers and 16 processing centers, adding at least 116,000 beds for detaining people in the country without authorization.

ICE arrests in Miami have reached record numbers, with the Miami office recording 41,310 arrests since January 2025, including 9,880 in 2026 alone, averaging 120 arrests per day. Miami's arrest rate is 36% higher than the second-place Dallas office, with the increase driven largely by collaboration between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities under Florida's 287(g) agreements. A UC Berkeley report found ICE arrests have quadrupled during Trump's second administration, with a 2,450% increase in detentions of people with no criminal record since January 2025. Olatunde Abiodun Olusanjo, a 53-year-old Nigerian national, was arrested by ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations unit in Los Angeles on April 21, 2026. He is being held pending immigration removal proceedings. His detention is linked to previous criminal charges including child molestation, sexual battery, and solicitation of lewd conduct. U.S. immigration authorities arrested 53-year-old Nigerian national Olatunde Olusanjo in Los Angeles on April 21, 2026. Olusanjo has previous convictions for child molestation, sexual battery, and soliciting lewd conduct. He is being held in ICE custody pending removal proceedings.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested multiple individuals on Wednesday who were previously convicted of serious crimes including sexual assault, drug trafficking, and assault, as part of enforcement actions during National Crime Victims Week. The arrests included individuals from Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador with convictions for offenses such as lewd acts with a child, aggravated sexual assault, assault by strangulation, and methamphetamine distribution.

A teacher in California's Central Valley with DACA status has been placed on unpaid leave as her work authorization renewal has stalled in processing for over five months, well beyond the typical timeline. Thousands of DACA recipients nationwide, including an estimated 6,784 educators in California, face extreme renewal delays that leave schools vulnerable to sudden staffing disruptions and put individuals at risk of losing work authorization and deportation protection.

Immigrant advocates in Oregon report that Hmong and Laotian people, including refugee families who assisted the U.S. military during the Secret War in Laos in the 1960s-70s, are being increasingly targeted for detention and deportation by ICE. The Trump administration deported nearly 400 Laotian individuals nationwide in the past year.

ICE detained more than 70 Minnesota children between December 1 and March 10 during Operation Metro Surge, according to analysis of court records and federal deportation data by Sahan Journal. Nearly two dozen children were held in custody for more than 20 days, with at least seven remaining in detention as of March 10. The detained children included 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, a 2-year-old, and 10-year-old Elizabeth Zuna Caisaguano. Approximately 20 children have since been deported, while another 10 self-deported or withdrew their admission applications. Advocates and attorneys representing detained families describe the detentions as harmful to children's well-being and their communities.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Houston field office announced 277 arrests between April 6 and April 17, 2026, of individuals the agency said were in the country without legal authorization and had prior criminal convictions. Those arrested had a combined 751 criminal convictions and included individuals with convictions for child sex crimes, homicide, drug trafficking, and assault. ICE named several individuals who were deported or remained in custody pending removal proceedings.

At least 17 immigrants have died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody since January 2026, marking a record high for deaths under ICE custody.

Paraguay announced it will receive 25 non-citizens expelled from the United States as part of the Trump administration's mass deportation push. This is part of a third-country deportation scheme that allows the US to send immigrants to countries they have no ties to, with Paraguay joining other nations like Costa Rica, El Salvador, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in accepting such deportations.

Twenty-two percent of people arrested by ICE in New York state during Trump's second term have voluntarily departed the country, up from less than 1 percent under Biden. Faced with prolonged detention while their cases proceed, thousands of detained immigrants have requested permission to abandon their immigration cases and leave the U.S., often under coercive circumstances where ICE agents pressure them immediately after arrest.

Lawyers across the country report that noncitizens are being deported without final removal orders from immigration judges, which they say is illegal. NY1 documented at least 132 cases where people were deported and received final removal orders after already being removed. One case involves Mario Mata Cruz, a man with pending green card status who was deported to El Salvador without a final removal order and remains there nearly six months later.

A Denver judge ruled that Governor Jared Polis cannot order state employees to comply with an ICE subpoena seeking personal information of 13 Coloradans, including 10 individuals from a prior subpoena. The judge found that ICE's claim the request was part of a criminal human trafficking investigation was not credible, as the agency waited nearly a year to resubmit the request with the new characterization.

The Trump administration deported approximately 15 Latin American migrants to Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo on April 17, 2026, as part of a third-country deportation program. The deportees, including nationals from Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, held legal protection orders from U.S. immigration judges against return to their home countries. Under a U.S.-Congo agreement, the migrants were granted 7-day visas extendable to three months and placed in a hotel in Kinshasa. The International Organization for Migration was tasked with providing humanitarian assistance and exploring assisted voluntary return options. The U.S. has established similar third-country deportation agreements with at least seven African nations and spent approximately $40 million deporting roughly 300 migrants under this program, with a second flight of 30 additional migrants scheduled for April 22. Fifteen Latin Americans, including a 29-year-old Colombian woman, were deported by the U.S. to Congo under the Trump administration's third-country deportation policy. The woman, who had received a U.S. immigration judge's protection order and a federal judge's ruling that she could not be safely returned to Colombia, was detained again at an ICE check-in despite a February 2025 habeas corpus release. She and others were flown to Congo with restrained hands and feet, arriving April 17, 2025, and are now confined to a hotel near Kinshasa's airport with supervised outings and facing impossible choices: return to home countries or remain in Congo with no support.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director Todd Lyons announced his resignation effective May 31, 2026. Lyons led the agency since March 2025 during an expansion of arrests and detention capacity. His tenure included high-profile enforcement operations in Chicago and Minneapolis.

An AP investigation found that ICE hired 12,000 new officers and special agents during a rapid expansion funded by a $75 billion congressional appropriation for mass deportation efforts, but the accelerated hiring process resulted in employees with questionable backgrounds being hired despite inadequate vetting. The agency hired candidates with histories including bankruptcies, allegations of misconduct, and incomplete law enforcement training, raising concerns about increased liability and potential abuse of power.

An Associated Press investigation found that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement hired approximately 12,000 new officers and agents during a rapid expansion funded by a $75 billion Congressional appropriation to support mass deportation operations announced in January 2025. The hiring spree included applicants with questionable qualifications and inadequate background vetting. Many new hires had histories of bankruptcies, financial problems, prior misconduct allegations, and incomplete law enforcement training. Some officers began work before completing background checks. The AP identified more than 40 officers with publicly disclosed positions on LinkedIn who had undisclosed financial problems and unstable employment records.

The Camden County Board of Commissioners introduced a resolution on April 16, 2026, that would prohibit ICE agents from entering county-owned or leased buildings without a judicial warrant. The resolution applies to county parks, the correctional facility, county college, technical schools, and administrative buildings, and would prevent the county from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement unless authorized by court order.

ICE nearly doubled its use of ankle monitors on people in its Alternatives to Detention program following a June 2025 internal memo, growing from approximately 24,000 to 42,000 people by February 2026. Legal advocates and experts argue the devices impose psychological, economic, and physical harms on wearers and often result in job loss. They contend the monitors may be used to pressure immigrants into self-deportation rather than ensure compliance. Research shows 98% of immigrants released without ankle monitors attended all court hearings and ICE check-ins, compared with 93% of those wearing devices, suggesting the devices do not improve compliance rates.

Bastrop County Jail booked 55 people with ICE immigration detainers during the first three months of 2026. Detainees were booked with various charges including DWI, drug possession, and driving without a license, along with more serious offenses. Local law enforcement agencies reported limited interaction with ICE and no advance notification of federal operations.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported 442,637 individuals between October 2024 and September 2025, according to federal data released in the DHS fiscal year 2027 budget justification. This represented an increase of approximately 171,000 deportations compared to the previous fiscal year, with roughly 38 percent of those deported having criminal records. The figure fell significantly short of President Trump's campaign goal of one million deportations annually. ICE stated it aims to deport 1 million people in the next fiscal year, though the agency requested reduced funding for detention and transportation operations.

Bloomberg Law reporters observed 55 bond hearings across five states in February and March 2026, documenting an overwhelmed immigration court system handling three times more bond requests than the previous year. Immigration judges approved bond in only 15 of 55 cases. Legal reinterpretations by the Trump administration and recent appeals court decisions made it significantly harder for detainees to secure release, with judges citing lack of jurisdiction and setting historically high bond amounts ranging from legal minimums to $40,000. ICE was holding at least 60,000 people monthly. Many detainees had deep U.S. ties including citizen children and spouses, yet faced months or years in custody while awaiting case adjudication.

Over 429 immigrants in San Francisco have sought voluntary departure between January 2025 and February 2026, many after the Department of Homeland Security filed "pretermit motions" to deport them to third countries where they have no ties. Victoria Hernandez, a Colombian asylum-seeker who fled armed group threats, chose voluntary departure rather than face potential removal to Honduras or Ecuador and the costly appeal process. Immigration advocates report that judges increasingly present voluntary departure as an option, while asylum-seekers face uncertainty about travel reimbursement and fear of danger upon return to their countries of origin.

At least 16 people died in ICE custody from January through early April 2026, following 31 deaths in 2025. The deaths include medical emergencies, suspected suicides, and cases under investigation across multiple detention facilities. ICE and DHS say detainees receive comprehensive care, but families and advocates have raised concerns about the circumstances.

ICE arrests in upstate New York quadrupled to 3,722 between January 2025 and January 2026, compared to 787 in 2024. Less than one-third of those arrested had criminal records, with the spike largely driven by policy changes that stripped legal status from asylum seekers and other immigrants living in the country legally. More than half of arrestees were in the asylum process when detained, and approximately two-thirds have since been deported.

Federal data shows a significant increase in hospitalizations of ICE detainees at U.S. hospitals under the Trump administration. Nationwide, hospital ICE detentions rose from approximately 1,300 in 2024 to 1,900 from January to mid-October 2025. In San Diego County specifically, at least 59 ICE detainees received hospital care during this period, compared to 29 for the entire previous year. The data shows that 33 people died while in ICE detention in 2024.

Data released by the Deportation Data Project shows that nearly half of ICE arrests in Massachusetts between January 20, 2025 and March 10, 2026 involved immigrants without any criminal record or pending criminal charges. According to the data, approximately 45-46 percent of the 7,031 arrests had no criminal record, contradicting Department of Homeland Security statements that 70 percent of arrests involve people with criminal convictions or charges. The actual figure for arrests involving criminal records was approximately 54 percent. The number of ICE arrests in Massachusetts increased fivefold compared to the final 14 months of the Biden administration, during which 26 percent of arrests involved people with no criminal record.

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger is deciding whether to continue 287(g) agreements that allow local law enforcement to make immigration-related arrests on behalf of ICE. The agreements have drawn criticism from advocacy groups concerned about liability and community trust, while Republican officials argue ending them would compromise public safety. Spanberger has until midnight Monday to make her decision.

ICE deportations in Central Texas are destabilizing families financially, with wives and daughters left as primary breadwinners facing foreclosure, utility shutoffs, and collapse of family businesses. The article focuses on Bricia, a 43-year-old cancer patient whose husband was detained by federal immigration agents, leaving the family unable to pay back taxes, utilities, and facing potential home foreclosure.

Operation Metro Surge, a controversial ICE enforcement operation in Minneapolis and St. Paul, began December 1, 2025, and deployed approximately 3,000 federal agents. The operation resulted in over 4,000 arrests and included two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens—Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti—in January 2026. The deaths, along with evidence of racial profiling and excessive force, sparked intense community protests and criticism from state and local officials, including Governor Tim Walz and Mayor Jacob Frey. A federal judge denied Minnesota's lawsuit challenging the operation on 10th Amendment grounds, though acknowledging evidence of misconduct. Following sustained public pressure, more than 1,000 ICE agents were withdrawn from Minnesota beginning in February 2026, effectively ending the operation.

The United States and Costa Rica implemented a bilateral third-country deportation agreement, with the first group of 25 migrants deported to Costa Rica in April 2026. The migrants were citizens of Albania, Cameroon, China, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Kenya, and Morocco. Under the agreement, Costa Rica will receive up to 25 deportees per week. The U.S. provides financial support, while the International Organization for Migration offers food, accommodation, and temporary humanitarian legal status for the first seven days.

Annie Ramos, a 22-year-old Honduran-born immigrant who arrived in the U.S. as a toddler, was detained by ICE on April 7, 2026, at Fort Polk military base in Louisiana while attempting to register for military benefits and file immigration paperwork following her marriage to Army Staff Sergeant Matthew Blank. Ramos was a college student with no criminal history who had applied for DACA status in 2020, though her application was never processed. She was subject to an outstanding removal order issued in 2005 after her family missed an immigration court hearing. After being held for nearly a week at an ICE detention facility in Basile, Louisiana, Ramos was released and ordered to wear a GPS monitor while removal proceedings continue.

On January 7, 2026, ICE agent Jonathan Ross fatally shot Renee Nicole Good, an unarmed U.S. citizen. Six federal prosecutors from the Minnesota U.S. attorney's office and four leaders of the DOJ's civil rights division resigned in protest after Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon declined to open a civil rights investigation into the shooting, despite career prosecutors' offer to lead an inquiry. By April 2026, the incident was cited among factors contributing to reduced international tourism confidence in the United States, alongside concerns about expanded ICE enforcement at airports and TSA staffing shortages.

The Trump administration announced a new ICE "Birth Tourism Initiative" targeting networks that allegedly help pregnant foreign nationals obtain U.S. citizenship for their children born in the country. The operation seeks to identify fraud and prosecute those involved in facilitating birth tourism, though the administration acknowledges that giving birth in the U.S. itself is not unlawful.

Three Democratic members of Congress conducted an unannounced inspection of an ICE detention facility at Mesa Gateway Airport in Arizona on April 9, 2026, and documented severe overcrowding conditions. The facility held approximately 250 people in a space designed for 157 detainees. Individual rooms designed to hold 21 people contained 40-50 detainees forced to sleep on concrete floors in shoulder-to-shoulder conditions that exceeded fire code capacity. Detainees reported fevers and heat with limited access to medical care, sanitary facilities, and toilets shared among dozens of people. Some detainees had been held for multiple days despite the facility's 12-hour maximum capacity limit. The lawmakers sent letters to the Department of Homeland Security requesting information about the facility conditions.

A report from the Deportation Data Project shows that deportations increased five-fold and street arrests by immigration enforcement agents rose eleven-fold during the first year of the current presidential administration compared to the end of the Biden administration. ICE arrests more than quadrupled overall, with eight times more arrests of people without criminal convictions. Daily detention beds holding people arrested in the United States quadrupled from approximately 14,000 in late 2024 to around 57,000 in January 2026.

The U.S. attorney's office in D.C. suspended processing of U visas for immigrant crime victims throughout most of 2025, creating barriers for victims who cooperated with police or prosecutors. The suspension increased distrust of law enforcement among immigrant communities, even as ICE arrest levels in the city subsequently declined.

ICE has been accessing Maryland's driver's license database to identify and target immigrants for deportation. State Sen. Clarence Lam raised concerns about the practice, calling for legislative action to protect residents' data from being used for immigration enforcement.