Human Impact Project

Oscar Belgal, a 28-year-old Dominican national and father, was shot in the neck by a plainclothes ICE agent during an enforcement operation in the Marble Hill section of the Bronx/Upper Manhattan while his 5-year-old child sat in the car with him. Officials said agents approached with guns drawn, and at least one agent fired seven rounds after the vehicle moved; he was found handcuffed and bleeding on the ground. His child was unharmed, described as in shock, and was later placed with family members. DHS cited a prior grand larceny conviction, a pending drug-sale charge, and alleged gang 'associations' without providing evidence, while attorneys with Make the Road New York said Belgal remains in pain with a bullet still in his body. He was treated at New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital in stable condition before being taken by ICE to New Jersey and then transferred to a Brooklyn detention facility, despite efforts by Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul to secure his release. A federal judge has since barred the government from deporting him, and the shooting prompted protests outside the hospital and calls for body camera footage and an independent investigation.

Baldemar Gutierrez, a 15-year-old U.S. citizen with significant hearing loss and speech delays, was pulled from a car and handcuffed at gunpoint by masked federal agents outside Arleta High School in Los Angeles while his mother, Andreina Mejia, was nearby enrolling his sister. Agents showed a photo of a Salvadoran national suspected of gang ties and mistook Baldemar for him, releasing him only after he repeatedly stated his name and citizenship; the encounter lasted about seven minutes. His mother said an agent told him the mistake would make an 'exciting story to tell' his friends, and said her son has since felt harassed and unsafe. School officials said agents left bullets at the scene, prompting increased school police patrols. The family's attorneys filed a $1 million claim against DHS, CBP, Border Patrol and ICE alleging racial profiling, false arrest, false imprisonment, and assault and battery; DHS denied racial profiling, calling it mistaken identity. The case has since been cited as part of a broader pattern of more than 500 U.S. citizens detained by ICE, despite DHS statements that ICE does not restrain or zip-tie children.

Three siblings in Brownsville, Texas, stopped to film an immigration arrest last summer and were themselves detained after agents attempted to seize their phones. One sibling, a young teenager around 14 years old, said agents tackled him to the ground with a knee behind his knee, causing sharp pain. He was separated from his mother, a green card holder, and feared agents would detain her as well. The siblings have since filed claims for damages against the government. Their case is among more than 500 U.S. citizens reported detained by ICE nationally.

Jeyli Salguero, a 20-year-old U.S. citizen, was asleep at her family's Minneapolis-area home in January 2026 when armed federal agents broke through the front door searching for her brother, who did not live there. Salguero said she told agents she was a citizen with the right to record, after which they seized her phone; she and her mother were released about half an hour later. Her father, who held temporary protected status, and her undocumented sister were detained in the raid, leaving the family's door broken and exposed to winter weather. Her sister was later deported to El Salvador, while her father was eventually released from detention. Salguero is now one of several plaintiffs, represented by Protect Democracy, the ACLU of Minnesota and Dorsey & Whitney, suing the federal government over a DHS memo allowing ICE agents to enter homes using administrative rather than judicial warrants. The lawsuit is part of broader legal challenges to immigration enforcement activity in Minneapolis.

A Border Patrol tactical unit confronted protesters blocking construction activity at the Arizona border wall. A protester described agents as wearing gas masks and wielding pepper spray, saying they were assaulting demonstrators rather than communicating with them. The confrontation highlights ongoing tensions between border communities and militarized enforcement at wall construction sites.

A resident of Kerman was detained by ICE agents on Thursday morning while stopping to buy a pastry and coffee, according to local officials who informed California Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria. Soria said she was "deeply disturbed" by the Trump administration's immigration enforcement operations and reports of racial profiling in the community, saying "no one should be targeted because of their color of their skin, the language they speak, their accent, or their last name."

An unnamed man was arrested by ICE agents in Mendota on Thursday morning without being asked any questions, according to Linda Martinez, an organizing coordinator with the United Farm Worker Foundation. He was released from ICE's downtown Fresno office later that afternoon after agents found his work permit in his wallet. The arrest occurred amid a broader ICE enforcement surge that advocates say has involved racial profiling of immigrant workers in the Fresno area this week.

An Angolan asylum seeker living in Maine was taken into ICE custody after negotiating a swap with immigration agents who had first detained his wife. The couple arranged the exchange so their 10-year-old son would not be left without a parent at home. Court records describe the arrangement as part of a broader pattern of federal agents tracking down immigrants with legal status at homes and workplaces in Maine, with lawyers noting Maine has stood out among New England states for this type of enforcement activity.

On October 19, 2025, more than 200 officers from roughly 14 federal and local agencies raided La Catedral Arena, a horse track in Wilder, Idaho, under a warrant covering only five gambling suspects. About 400 attendees, including children as young as 7, were zip-tied and detained for hours; 105 people were taken into ICE custody and five were arrested on gambling charges. Lead plaintiff Juana Rodriguez, a U.S. citizen, said she was restrained for nearly four hours while holding her 3-year-old son. Anabel Romero said her children, among more than a dozen American minors detained, remain deeply shaken, with her 7-year-old son later warning his older sister ahead of another race, 'Watch out for ICE, make sure you have your phone to film — I'll come save you.' A lawsuit alleges officers used racial epithets and denied food, water, and medical care; four protesters were also arrested, with most charges later dropped. U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ordered 15-16 detainees released, ruling mandatory detention violated due process, and awarded about $87,000 in attorneys' fees.

In January, hours after Renee Good's killing, immigration agents tackled and handcuffed a school staff member in Minneapolis. "I feel lucky to be alive," he recalled, describing the encounter as terrifying.

In November, immigration agents took an 18-year-old U.S. citizen off the street and eventually left him in the woods.

In April, a 20-year-old U.S. citizen was held in a Florida jail for more than 24 hours despite having proof of his citizenship.

During a Sept. 4 ICE raid in Dover, N.J., a Honduran man was picked up on his way to work, loaded into a van, and taken with nine other detained men to a warehouse in nearby Roxbury, where they were handcuffed and held in a parking lot for hours. Frightened, he signed deportation papers and said he regretted it the next morning; NPR later located him in Honduras, where he had been deported, and he requested anonymity out of fear for loved ones still in the U.S. During the same raid, a 59-year-old worker was cornered against a wall by two masked ICE agents in footage that later circulated on social media. His daughter recognized him in the video and received a disoriented call from him afterward saying he was handcuffed somewhere she believed was the Roxbury warehouse; she has not been able to reach him since and asked not to be named for fear of being targeted.

Orville Etoria, a Jamaican man transferred by the United States to Eswatini under its third-country deportation program, described in a deposition being held in extreme isolation during his first weeks at Matsapha Correctional Complex, a maximum-security prison. He said he was barred from communicating with anyone outside the prison for two and a half weeks, confined to his cell except to be fed, and treated 'as if we were violent, even though we had done nothing wrong,' until guards came to see the US government's portrayal of detainees as false.

Tesfay T., a 35-year-old Ethiopian man who had been imprisoned and tortured in Ethiopia and later kidnapped and tortured again in Mexico, fled to the United States and spent more than a year in immigration detention after crossing the border irregularly. An immigration judge denied his asylum claim but granted him 'withholding of removal' because of the likelihood he would be tortured again if returned to Ethiopia. In February 2026, while his lawyer was pursuing a habeas corpus petition for his release, an ICE officer told him to sign a voluntary departure form and said, 'I don't care, I'm going to sign it myself' when Tesfay refused and asked to speak with his attorney. He was then flown to Cameroon chained at his wrists, legs, and stomach for the entire journey, denied the ability to stand or use a bathroom without restraints, and was not told his destination until after landing.

Volkan Guzey, a longtime captain at Carbone Miami and native of Turkey, was detained by ICE agents at Miami International Airport on September 4 as he and his wife, Eliana Cabrera, prepared to board a flight for their honeymoon. The couple had married less than three months earlier and had planned a road trip through Cabrera's home state of Utah. Guzey had worked at Carbone Miami, part of Major Food Group, since January 2021, with prior restaurant experience at Fig & Olive, Del Posto, and The Grill. Cabrera says authorities transferred him from Florida to Texas and then to Colorado, where as of October 8 he was listed as held at the Denver Contract Detention Facility. She described him as the couple's primary income earner and started a GoFundMe to help cover legal fees, rent, and other expenses related to his detention.

At the GEO Group-run Folkston D. Ray James ICE Processing Center in Georgia, at least 73 detained immigrants launched a hunger strike protesting prolonged detention and facility conditions, including asylum seekers from Russia, China, Sudan, Afghanistan, Nepal and Yemen held from 16 months to nearly three years without being charged with a crime. The strike followed a video recorded by four detainees using the facility's video-calling software, including Russian asylum seeker Idris Makhmudov, who said he has been held for 27 months and described dysfunctional immigration courts and poor conditions. Attorney Samantha Hamilton said everyone who appeared in the video was placed in segregation as retaliation, and Makhmudov was reportedly held in solitary confinement. Separately, 45 detainees wrote an open letter detailing conditions, with detainees and advocates alleging substandard medical care, moldy or nearly inedible food, dirty water containing worms, and detainees developing diabetes and high blood pressure. Makhmudov said most detainees at the facility are asylum seekers fleeing persecution.

Luis Caiza, an asylum seeker from Ecuador with a work permit and no criminal record, was pulled from his car and thrown to the ground during a traffic stop in Maple Grove, Minnesota, part of ICE's Operation Metro Surge in the Twin Cities. His wife, Marjorie Flores, said officers kneed and kicked him while he was down, then pulled her from the car, threw her onto the icy street, and pointed a weapon at her as she pleaded that their three children, Camila, Sneyder, and Emilio, were at home. Caiza has since been held for nearly 10 months at the Torrance County Detention Facility in New Mexico, where he has described tooth infections, inadequate food, lack of clean clothing, and severe delays receiving legal mail. He said video calls with his children have become too painful to continue. His attorney, Danielle Molliver, disputes a judge's finding that he is a flight risk due to prior DWIs and has filed a second petition challenging his prolonged detention while his asylum appeal, which he recently lost, remains pending. Flores now works three jobs totaling 93 hours a week to support their children.

Jeury Concepcion, a 19-year-old U.S. citizen from the Bronx, was tackled by ICE agents near East Gun Hill Road and Hull Avenue after being mistaken for a man with a removal order. Cellphone video showed masked, armed agents forcing him to the ground and handcuffing him outside a barber shop as a bystander shouted 'Why you kidnapping?!' Witnesses said Concepcion repeatedly told agents he was a U.S. citizen as he was restrained and left bleeding from a head wound. Agents later checked his ID, realized the error, apologized, and dropped him off bloodied in an unfamiliar park, where his mother and grandmother, Ivelisse Garcia Santana, found him and took him for treatment; he was diagnosed with a concussion and received seven stitches. "He just grabbed me and threw me on the floor," Concepcion recalled. A DHS spokesperson said ICE did not arrest him, claiming he was briefly detained for matching a description and refusing to identify himself, but Judge Gary R. Brown reviewed the video, called the incident 'extremely violent,' and ruled the arrest illegal, citing 'significant injury to a U.S. citizen.' His case is among more than 500 U.S. citizens identified as having been detained by immigration agents during the Trump administration.

Brian José Morales García, a 25-year-old HVAC worker from Austin born in Denver, Colorado, was riding in his employer's truck near Fredericksburg, Texas, on April 3, 2026, when a state trooper stopped the vehicle over an alleged window-tint violation. He repeatedly told officers he was a citizen and offered his birth certificate, Social Security card, and baptismal record, but said they refused to accept the documents; the Gillespie County Sheriff's Office held him before Border Patrol took custody. He said agents mocked his citizenship claim and pressured him into signing paperwork admitting illegal entry, which he did to avoid prolonged detention and reunite with his pregnant wife in Mexico. He was deported four to five days after the stop, missing the birth of his daughter and spending nearly five months with relatives in Mexico. His attorneys, including Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, filed a federal lawsuit alleging coercion and racial profiling, submitting his birth certificate, hospital records, baptismal certificate, and witness affidavits, while DHS disputed his citizenship claim. A federal judge called the case 'highly unusual' and ordered discovery; the Department of Justice agreed to let him return to Austin on August 30, 2026. His civil rights lawsuit continues, and his case is cited among more than 500 reported instances of U.S. citizens detained by ICE nationally.