Human Impact Project

Federal ICE agents used tear gas and pepper balls to disperse approximately 100 protesters outside a Chicago ICE detention facility during a demonstration against immigration enforcement operations. Protesters included a pastor and two Democratic congressional candidates. The protest aimed to block government vehicles from entering the facility. At least three arrests resulted and there were clashes between federal agents and demonstrators. A DHS official defended the ICE officer's use of pepper balls against the pastor.

Federal immigration agents intimidated two women who were documenting their activity on the west side this morning near Grand and Kostner. In a video posted to social media, they say agents boxed their car in a parking lot and surrounded it—but the women themselves never exited their vehicle. Agents threatened the women with arrest, and shined a flashlight into their vehicle.

NYC Comptroller Brad Lander and 10 state lawmakers were arrested during a civil disobedience protest inside 26 Federal Plaza where ICE maintains holding cells for recently detained immigrants. Federal prosecutors offered to drop obstruction charges if the officials avoided arrest in federal buildings for six months, but Lander rejected the deal while the lawmakers accepted. Lander stated the protest was to draw attention to detention conditions at the ICE facility.

The ACLU filed a class-action lawsuit against ICE on September 18, 2025, challenging arrest practices at immigration courts and detention conditions at the ICE field office at 630 Sansome Street in San Francisco. The suit alleges that asylum-seekers are arrested in courthouse hallways and held in inhumane conditions including cold cells with no beds, inadequate hygiene facilities, and limited access to counsel. The lawsuit seeks to nullify ICE memos allowing courthouse arrests and mandate improvements to detention conditions.

Wesley Powers, a U.S. Navy veteran and U.S. citizen, was shot with chemical agent by ICE agents while protesting at Minnesota's Whipple Detention Center in January 2026. He was detained for 9 hours in an overcrowded cell, had his lawyer calls monitored, and was photographed by agents using personal phones before being released without charges. Powers reports subsequent incidents including vehicles at his home and lost work income.

An 11-year-old U.S. citizen girl recovering from a rare brain tumor was deported to Mexico in February 2025 along with her undocumented parents and siblings after immigration authorities detained them at a checkpoint while the family traveled to Houston for specialized medical treatment. Four of the family's five children are U.S. citizens. Since deportation, the girl's health has deteriorated significantly, with worsening seizures, muscle spasms, and loss of neurological functions. She has received only one MRI scan instead of the recommended quarterly monitoring. The family filed humanitarian parole applications through the Texas Civil Rights Project, but USCIS has not yet responded to their requests to return to the U.S. for continued care.

Detainees at the California City ICE Detention Facility reported denied medications, delayed healthcare appointments, and unsafe conditions. Medical staff withheld treatment and medications according to detainee accounts. Some detainees experienced serious health crises including pre-heart attacks and worsening chronic conditions. Civil rights organizations filed a class-action lawsuit.

Amadou Dia, a Senegalese national who entered the US in 2006 and applied for asylum in 2007, was detained without bond on September 17, 2025 for removal after an immigration judge denied his asylum claim in 2012. ICE initially planned to remove him to Gabon, but when that country refused travel documents, they arranged for his removal to Ghana without allowing him to assert fear-based claims about that country. The court granted a temporary restraining order preventing his removal until he receives a fair hearing.

Three women known as the Baldwin Park 3 were acquitted of charges brought by federal prosecutors, including assault and doxxing charges related to ICE agents. The post claims that evidence presented during the trial, including video footage, contradicted the government's case against the defendants.

Joe Botello, a U.S. citizen born in Texas, was handcuffed and detained by federal agents during an immigration enforcement operation in Elgin on September 16, 2025. Agents forcibly entered his home, breaking down doors, and placed him in a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol vehicle before releasing him after scanning his driver's license. The operation, part of a larger immigration enforcement blitz in the Chicago area, also resulted in the detention of his roommates.

A 73-year old East Bay grandmother, Harjit Kaur, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials during a routine check-in this week. Today, her family and an expected 200 community members will stage a protest demanding her release.The protest will be held at 5 p.m. today (Friday, Sept. 12) at the intersection of Appian Way and San Pablo Dam Road in El Sobrante (below the El Sobrante Gurdwara).Kaur has lived in the East Bay for more than 30 years. She currently lives in Hercules but worked for two decades at a small business, Sari Palace, in Berkeley and regularly attended the El Sobrante Sikh Gurdwara. She was detained on Monday after ICE asked her to come to the San Francisco office to turn in additional paperwork. On Tuesday she was taken to a detention center in Bakersfield.“It’s just been a total nightmare. I don’t feel like this is real,” Manji Kaur, Harjit Kaur’s daughter-in-law, told Richmondside. Kaur has two -grandsons and three granddaughters.

Roberto Lacoss, a former lawful permanent resident from the Philippines, was arrested by ICE in Pearl, Mississippi on September 16, 2025, following a criminal conviction for statutory rape. After being ordered removed by an immigration judge, Lacoss complied with the deportation order and departed the United States for the Philippines, with ICE deportation officers present to confirm his departure.

ICE agents encountered a 5-year-old autistic girl outside her family's home in Leominster, Massachusetts while attempting to arrest her father, Edward Hip Mejia, a Guatemalan national. After Mejia fled into his house, agents held the child outside. Local police responded and recovered the girl, returning her to her family. Mejia was detained two days later and is currently held at an ICE detention center in Plymouth.

A single father of six U.S. citizen children applied for a special visa but was deported by ICE. The case involved family ties and legal efforts to prevent deportation.

The government of Ghana announced that 14 West Africans (13 Nigerians and 1 Gambian) who were deported from the US have been sent to their home countries. US lawyers filed a lawsuit arguing the deportations violated immigration protections and that the Trump administration used Ghana as a third country to circumvent US immigration laws.

ICE agents detained at least two Venezuelan men in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood on Monday, including one pulled from his car at 24th and Albany despite claims of legal status. Witnesses say agents hit the car before the man exited, then left his wife and two small children crying in the intersection without providing a warrant or information about his location. The Little Village Community Council, which had distributed whistles during Sunday's Mexican Independence Day parade to alert neighbors of ICE presence, is now working to secure legal representation as detentions increase and fear spreads through the community.

Immigration agents moved a car off the road after breaking its windows and detaining someone on the southwest side. The car was returned to family. Agents abandoned several other vehicles during arrests around Chicago.

Federal immigration agents conducted a raid at a carwash in California. A social media post documented the incident, describing agents detaining workers at the location.

ICE agents raided the Bixby Knolls Car Wash in Long Beach on Saturday, detaining seven workers (four women and three men). The workers, from Honduras, El Salvador, and Mexico, had various forms of legal status according to the manager, but agents allegedly confiscated or dismissed their immigration documents. The detained workers have been processed at facilities in Santa Ana, Adelanto, and Los Angeles.

An undocumented father, Silvero Villegas-Gonzalez, was involved in multiple federal immigration enforcement incidents in suburban Chicago. In one incident at a Sam's Club parking lot in Cicero, federal agents pepper-sprayed Villegas-Gonzalez and his 1-year-old daughter at close range, though the U.S. Department of Homeland Security disputed that pepper spray was deployed. Subsequently, Villegas-Gonzalez was fatally shot by an ICE agent in Franklin Park, Illinois during an arrest attempt. DHS stated the agent fired after Villegas-Gonzalez resisted arrest and attempted to drive his car into agents. Villegas-Gonzalez's attorney noted he had no criminal record, only minor traffic violations between 2010 and 2019.

A man was detained by ICE at a Home Depot location in Orange County. He was admitted to Orange County Global Medical Center. He is a stroke patient who has had six prior strokes and takes multiple medications.

ICE agents shot and killed Silverio Villegas González, a 38-year-old Mexican citizen, during a traffic stop in Franklin Park near Chicago. The Department of Homeland Security claimed Villegas González drove his car at officers, but witness videos and security footage show he was driving away from agents when shot. He was pronounced dead at Loyola Hospital after his vehicle crashed into a semitruck.

Omar Salazar, a Dallas community leader and SMU graduate, was detained by ICE for seven months following a traffic stop in Lubbock in August 2025 where he presented a Mexican ID and lacked a valid U.S. driver's license. After losing his immigration case, he was ordered deported to Mexico with 60 days to voluntarily depart. Salazar was brought to the U.S. as a minor at age 11, did not qualify for asylum, and missed DACA eligibility by a few months.

Silverio Villegas Gonzalez was shot and killed by an ICE agent during a traffic stop in Franklin Park on September 12, 2025. The agent claimed Villegas Gonzalez attempted to run him over. Video evidence contradicts this account. Following his death, Idaho authorities took custody of his two young sons. His family is fighting to reunite with the children and demanding an investigation into the fatal shooting.

On September 12, 2025, an ICE officer fatally shot Silverio Villegas González, a Mexican immigrant, during a traffic stop. Body camera footage shows the injured officer telling police his injuries were "nothing major," including a knee injury and hand lacerations. Federal officials stated he was "seriously injured" and dragged by González's vehicle.

On September 12, ICE officers attempted to arrest Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, a 38-year-old Mexican immigrant, during a traffic stop in Franklin Park, Illinois. After the officers approached his vehicle, Villegas-Gonzalez reversed and then drove forward; an officer fired two shots, striking him in the neck. The vehicle crashed approximately 170 feet away, and Villegas-Gonzalez was pronounced dead at a hospital. Video analysis found no evidence of contact between the vehicle and an officer. An officer sustained injuries including a knee injury and hand lacerations.

ICE agents detained Willian Gimenez in Little Village on September 12 while he entered a barbershop with his wife. ICE refused to disclose his location and denied his attorneys access to him. Gimenez is a plaintiff in a lawsuit against Home Depot and off-duty Chicago police for targeting immigrant day laborers.

ICE agents arrested Denis Rivera Martinez, a parent from Honduras, near Talbot Community School in Portland on Thursday morning. The agents did not identify themselves to school staff, wearing only vests marked "police."

As ICE increases patrols in Washington, D.C., immigrant neighborhoods have organized "walking school buses" where groups of parents escort children to school. The initiative was established in response to Trump administration immigration enforcement targeting residents who entered the country illegally.

In December, a Salvadoran day laborer named Josué was detained by masked agents outside a Home Depot in Signal Hill. The incident was captured on video by a Long Beach Rapid Response patroller. Josué has since spent months in the Adelanto Detention Center, while his partner Maria and her daughter Sara seek answers and legal representation for his case.

Mariela, a mother of three, was denied proper medical care while in immigration detention and is now facing a possible cancer diagnosis. She is seeking urgent medical care, housing, and legal support to address her health condition and provide stability for her children.

A Laotian refugee was detained by ICE during a routine check-in in Tukwila, Washington and faced deportation. Following intervention, US authorities ordered his release from the ICE detention center in Tacoma on September 6, 2025.

Rosalio Pelayo Salgado, detained by ICE on September 10, called his daughters from the Broadview processing facility to report being held in a room with at least 150 other men. He described officers yelling slurs, food and water being withheld based on behavior, and his anxiety medication being refused. His daughters protested at the facility on September 19, learning he was scheduled to be deported the following day.

A San Diego law firm filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court seeking to stop ICE from arresting asylum seekers at immigration court hearings. The lawsuit argues that courthouse arrests violate constitutional rights and due process and impact the immigration court system. The suit was filed on behalf of two asylum seekers arrested at San Diego's immigration court, both of whom had no criminal records and regularly attended their hearings.

The Department of Homeland Security stated that filming and posting videos of ICE agents constitutes "violence" and threatened to charge people who take videos and photos of agents conducting raids. DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said that "videotaping ICE law enforcement and posting photos and videos of them online is doxxing our agents."

Federal ICE agents apprehended two people in Maplewood using unmarked cars. According to local officials and advocacy groups, three masked ICE and Border Patrol agents loaded the two arrestees into unmarked, out-of-state vehicles on Prospect Street around 11 a.m. The local police department was not notified of the incident, and the township does not cooperate with ICE.

A woman who had been living legally in the United States for 47 years was detained by ICE over 22 bad checks.

An ICE agent in Portland, Oregon performed a salute on camera on 9/8/25. The agent covered his license plate with black tape or paper.

ICE has violated its policy limiting detainee stays in temporary hold rooms to 12 hours, keeping immigrants in crowded, poorly equipped spaces for days or weeks. An internal audit found detainees lacked basic amenities like pillows and blankets, with some facilities averaging stays of three days or longer. Maksym Chernyak died in ICE custody after spending over three days in a Krome hold room. He did not receive adequate medical attention during his detention.

Leodegario Martínez Barradas, a flower vendor, was arrested by federal immigration agents in Chicago's Archer Heights neighborhood on September 7, 2025, during the launch of Trump's "Operation Midway Blitz" immigration enforcement operation. He was deported to Mexico within days. The Trump administration claims the operation targets criminal immigrants. Barradas had no known violent criminal record.

Jesus Munoz-Gutierrez, a Mexican migrant deported to South Sudan by the US in July 2025 as part of President Trump's immigration crackdown, has been repatriated to Mexico. Munoz-Gutierrez was one of eight men deported to South Sudan on July 5 after a legal battle, and Mexico accepted his return after receiving assurances he would not face torture or inhumane treatment.

Hilda Gloria Yanez-Zavala, who came to the U.S. from El Salvador three years ago and was granted asylum, was detained during an immigration raid at a factory in Cato where she worked legally. She was separated from her two sons and held in detention for a month before deciding to self-deport. Her two sons remained in America.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers conducted a raid at a construction site near CIA headquarters in Virginia. Construction workers fleeing the raid attempted to scale fences surrounding the CIA complex during the morning commute. ICE did not notify the CIA in advance of the operation. No workers breached security or posed a threat to the facility.

Darian Maldonado Medina, a Venezuelan with Temporary Protected Status, was detained by ICE during a routine check-in in Tampa on September 5, 2025, and deported to Venezuela three weeks later. He had valid TPS status at the time of detention, a pending family petition through his U.S. citizen mother, and a 15-month-old U.S. citizen son and partner remaining in Florida. A federal court order had extended TPS protections prior to his deportation. Lawyers have argued that the deportation violated federal law and court orders.

A California State University Channel Islands professor was charged with throwing a tear gas canister during an incident. In a separate immigration enforcement action in Southern California, a legal green card holder who was working toward U.S. citizenship was detained by ICE. The woman's husband expressed concern following her detention.

Y.A. fled Somalia after being subjected to female genital mutilation and narrowly escaping forced marriage and attempted rape. After entering the U.S. in October 2024, she applied for asylum. On September 4, 2025, an immigration judge pretermitted her applications and ordered her removed to Honduras or Uganda under Asylum Cooperative Agreements. She remains detained with her appeal pending, fearing severe harm in both countries as a Black, Muslim woman.

A Valley family and their attorney claim that Immigration and Customs Enforcement should release their relative while his legal status is clarified. The man was granted a special cancellation of removal in Phoenix in 2022, but the case was never finalized and remains pending. He was recently detained for new removal proceedings, and his attorney argues his status should have been protected since the last court hearing three years ago.

A couple expecting their third child is facing deportation. Their two other children, including a 5-month-old, have been placed with family members. LULAC has found legal representation and is seeking financial assistance to help care for their U.S. citizen children.

The Trump administration attempted to repatriate 76 Guatemalan children from U.S. government custody in overnight operations. Children were woken from their beds and reported crying and vomiting. A federal judge temporarily blocked the removals after attorneys argued the government violated U.S. law protecting unaccompanied minors from deportation without due process. The children were returned to shelters after being placed on planes. Declarations indicated many had not requested to return and stated they feared danger if sent back to Guatemala.

Two carwasheros were detained from car washes in Orange County. Their families and legal advocates fought to secure bonds, with Cuberto's bond set at $2,500 and Rodolfo's at $2,000. The post appeals for help reaching fundraising goals to release these individuals.