Human Impact Project

Marina Lopez, a woman seeking asylum from Guatemala, was detained by ICE on June 4, 2025, during a routine check-in appointment and spent seven months in a Kentucky detention center. The federal government provided no evidence or explanation for her detention, and she was released on December 23, 2025, after a judge found the government had no record justifying her continued imprisonment. During her detention, her church community provided extensive support to her family, organizing fundraising, childcare, and daily assistance.

ICE agents conducted a raid in Norristown, Pennsylvania, targeting a family who claim to be U.S. citizens. According to the family's statement, agents rammed into a family member's car, threatened them with a loaded gun, and attempted to take someone without a warrant, despite the person living in the residence and no warrant being presented.

Walter Alexander Lobo-Portillo, a 50-year-old El Salvador citizen who has lived in the U.S. for approximately 20 years, was detained by ICE agents during a traffic stop in North Hills, California on June 3, 2025. ICE agents pulled over his vehicle, asked for documentation, and took him into custody after he could not establish lawful immigration status. The court granted a temporary restraining order requiring his immediate release from the Adelanto ICE Processing Center where he had been held for over 10 months.

A 24-year-old transgender asylum seeker from Mexico was detained by ICE officers outside a Portland immigration courtroom on June 2, 2025, after appearing for a scheduled court hearing. The woman, who fled Mexico after being raped and threatened by cartel members, had applied for asylum in February 2025 and was arrested in the courtroom lobby without being offered legal counsel or opportunity to be heard before detention.

An 18-year-old Milford High School student, Marcelo Gomes Da Silva, was detained by ICE agents off campus on Saturday while driving his father's vehicle. Da Silva came to the United States on a student visa in 2012 that has since lapsed, and he intends to apply for asylum. A federal judge ordered he not be moved out of state for 72 hours following a habeas corpus petition filed by his attorney.

Two Mexican nationals in their thirties were detained by ICE agents in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood on Monday morning, one at a business and another at their home. Witnesses reported that no warrants were presented during the detentions. Local leaders called for a full investigation. Community organizations are providing legal and emotional support to residents.

Johane Morel, 47, arrived in the U.S. at age 5 and had no memory of Haiti. In June 2025, while attending an order of supervision appointment in Titusville, she was detained and transported to Baker County Detention Center in Macclenny before being deported to Cap-Haïtien, Haiti two weeks later. Unable to speak Haitian Creole, without family support, and with no knowledge of the country, she struggled to adapt and reported sexual assault, homelessness, and severe difficulty building a new life.

Documents revealed in a federal lawsuit show that ICE officers detained up to 100 people at a time in a makeshift facility on the 10th floor of 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan in 2025, despite the Trump administration denying overcrowding. Internal emails and testimony from ICE officials themselves acknowledged the deteriorating conditions, including detainees lying on cement floors, inadequate food, lack of medical care, and failure to comply with a judge's order limiting occupancy. Detainees including Nuvia Ventura Martinez and Carlos Lopez Benitez testified about days spent in cells designed for only 12-hour stays, with no beds or showers.

A 23-year-old South American woman was granted protection from deportation to her home country by an immigration judge in June 2025 after fleeing persecution based on her queer identity. Despite this ruling, ICE has held her in Richwood Correctional Center in Monroe, Louisiana for over a year while seeking to deport her to the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country where she has never been and where she would face serious risks.

Brayan Rayo Garzón, a 27-year-old Colombian national, died by suicide in April 2025 while in ICE custody at Phelps County Jail in Rolla, Missouri. He had been arrested by St. Louis Metropolitan Police on credit card fraud charges in March 2025 and transferred to ICE custody on March 25, 2025. Despite repeatedly pleading with guards to call his mother and submitting handwritten requests for permission to make phone calls—which were denied due to COVID-19 protocols—he attempted to hang himself with a sheet in his cell on April 7, 2025. He was found unresponsive, briefly revived, and airlifted to a St. Louis hospital where he was pronounced brain dead. No mental health evaluation was conducted during his ICE custody. Two months later, his mother Lucy Garzón retrieved his ashes with assistance from the Ashrei Foundation and held a funeral Mass in St. Louis, while Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced a diplomatic protest in response.

In June 2025, an immigration judge ordered that the U.S. government could not deport a 23-year-old South American woman who had been detained in a North Louisiana immigration facility, citing her fear of torture based on her queer identity under the UN Convention Against Torture. The Trump administration has since attempted to circumvent the withholding order by seeking a third country willing to accept her, a practice that often results in prolonged detention and costly legal battles.

Undocumented day laborers who volunteered to clear toxic fire debris in Altadena and Pasadena after the January 2025 Eaton wildfire were arrested in June 2025 ICE sweeps. Workers cleared roads and distributed water to fire victims without pay. ICE enforcement operations targeted job sites, Home Depot parking lots, and street vendors in wildfire-affected and recovery-zone neighborhoods. ICE arrested over 2,200 people in LA in June 2025 alone.

An immigration judge dismissed the deportation case against Narciso Barranco, a Mexican landscaper arrested in Southern California in June 2025 during a Trump administration immigration crackdown. Barranco, who came to the U.S. in the 1990s without legal status, is now eligible for legal permanent residency based on evidence that he is the father of three U.S.-born sons serving in the military. The Department of Homeland Security announced it would appeal the judge's decision.