Human Impact Project

ICE arrested the mother of a 9-year-old boy at a school bus stop in Austin, Texas, leaving the child alone and crying. A video of the arrest, described as heartbreaking to watch, was shared by Leonardo Pelaez.

A 26-year-old refugee known only as Adam, who fled forced military conscription, was granted protection from removal by a US immigration judge but was secretly deported to Equatorial Guinea in November 2025 under a third-country removal deal. He has been confined alone in a hotel room under armed guard for nearly a year, and was recently handcuffed and beaten by security officers who warned him not to speak out.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear a case brought by Ricardo Aparecido Barbosa da Cunha, a Brazilian citizen who has lived in the US for over 20 years, challenging the Trump administration's policy of indefinite detention without bond hearings. Barbosa da Cunha, who owns a home and business in Massachusetts and has a wife and two US-born children, was arrested by ICE while driving to work and detained in Buffalo, New York. Lower courts sided with him, ordering a bond hearing, but the administration is appealing to the Supreme Court. Judges in nine of eleven federal appeals courts have rejected the government's reinterpretation of the detention statute.

Ricardo Aparecido Barbosa da Cunha, a Brazilian immigrant who entered the U.S. without documentation around 2005, applied for asylum in 2016 and received a work permit. In September 2025, he was detained by immigration authorities following a traffic stop in Norwood, Massachusetts, after the Trump administration issued an administrative warrant for his arrest and held him without bond under a disputed interpretation of a 1996 immigration law. Da Cunha challenged his detention in federal court; a district court judge ordered his release, and the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld that ruling, finding mandatory detention did not apply to him. On October 1, 2026, the Supreme Court announced it would hear the Trump administration's appeal, which seeks to determine whether immigrants facing deportation proceedings can be held indefinitely without a bond hearing, a policy that has already been applied to thousands of people.

The brother of Zolia Virgen Verduzco, who had lived in the United States for 45 years, was detained and deported to Mexico despite having legal counsel and ongoing documentation processes underway, according to Verduzco. She said her family had paid thousands of dollars in legal fees to try to keep him in the country. Verduzco shared her brother's story while attending a community rally in Tallahassee supporting other detained immigrants.

A group of roofing workers was intercepted by ICE agents at a gas station in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Enrique Hernández Díaz, owner of the roofing company, told N+ Univision that one of his employees was detained and taken away by agents who said they were looking for a person with a criminal record connected to the vehicle. Hernández Díaz, a lawful permanent resident, said he was also handcuffed and held because he did not have his green card on him, and that agents threw him to the ground, injuring his elbow, knee and forehead, prompting a hospital visit. His wife, Roxanna Álvarez Cruz, arrived minutes later with his residency card; she said agents told her they would not release him until they confirmed his immigration status, and he was later released.

Reginaldo Quej, Erwin Orlando Xoy Acaham, and Catherine Migdalia Rax Sis, who worked at Chile & Chili's Taqueria in northwest Tallahassee, were detained on September 25, 2026 after ICE and Florida Highway Patrol attempted to stop a vehicle near West Tennessee Street suspected of carrying someone without legal status. The vehicle pulled onto the restaurant's property, and the occupants fled on foot before being caught and handcuffed. ICE said the taqueria was not the target of the operation. Owner Shannon Tenorio described the three as 'good people trying to make a living' and said they were in the process of finalizing their immigration paperwork; she said remaining staff quit days later out of fear and harassment, prompting the location to close. An immigration attorney said none of the three had a serious or prior criminal history, though Quej has a final removal order from March 2025, Xoy Acaham has requested voluntary departure, and Rax Sis remains in ongoing proceedings; all three stayed in ICE custody. Community members launched a GoFundMe that raised nearly $13,000 for the workers' families, and the Tallahassee Immigrant Rights Alliance organized a protest rally at the restaurant, calling it part of increased ICE enforcement in Florida.

ICE agents arrested Welington Leonel Almara-Diaz at Meriden Superior Court in Connecticut after Judicial Marshal Services received a Warrant of Removal/Deportation stemming from a final removal order issued in October 2023, following his apprehension by Border Patrol near Hidalgo, Texas, in September 2022. Witnesses said about ten agents, some masked, entered the courthouse around 1 p.m., and video showed marshals blocking advocates as a woman fell to the ground during the confrontation. Advocates, including Middlesex Immigrant Rights Alliance member Miguel Castro, gathered outside after learning ICE was near the courthouse, and at least one person was injured during the chaotic scene. ICE said marshals impeded the arrest and protesters blocked officers' exit, prompting agents to use their training to 'gain control of the situation.' Connecticut officials and the ACLU are investigating whether the arrest violated state law restricting civil immigration arrests on courthouse grounds without a judicial warrant and rules on mask use by officers.

Mario Mata Cruz, a Salvadoran national with a pending Special Immigrant Juvenile Status application and no criminal record, was arrested by ICE on Long Island in October 2025 while driving to work with his brother. He had crossed the border at age 17 and obtained SIJ status in 2019, putting him on a path toward a green card. ICE transported him to Texas and deported him to El Salvador without a final removal order from an immigration judge or signed voluntary departure paperwork, which his attorney Ed Cuccia says was illegal. His lawyers sued the Trump administration, and the government agreed to return him from El Salvador over the summer, but instead of being released to New York where his brother lives, he has been held in detention facilities in Louisiana, New Jersey, and Virginia with no ties to those states. An immigration judge in New Jersey denied him bond, and a hearing on his green card application was scheduled. His case is part of a broader pattern NY1 documented of at least 132 cases where people were deported without final removal orders.