Human Impact Project

Roberto Hernandez, a 62-year-old undocumented immigrant with no criminal record, was detained by ICE during a traffic stop in Minnesota on January 5, 2026, while driving to work as a cook. He has been held in a New Mexico detention facility for nearly four months and now faces deportation despite having lived in the United States for nearly 30 years and being in the process of applying for permanent residency sponsored by his son, a Minneapolis police detective. Hernandez was arrested during Operation Metro Surge without a warrant or removal order. His case reflects a broader pattern in which the majority of ICE detainees have not been convicted of crimes.

On January 4, 2026, ICE agents in vehicles with out-of-state license plates surveilled St. Gabriel the Archangel Catholic Church in Hopkins, Minnesota, during a Spanish-language Mass, positioning themselves outside the church building. Pastor Paul Haverstock reported that parishioners informed him of men wearing ski masks sitting in a car outside, prompting him to prepare his phone to record if agents entered during the service. Following this surveillance and the earlier deportation of church employee Francisco Paredes, attendance at the Spanish Mass dropped by half from over 400 people, and parishioners expressed fear of attending worship. Church leadership and Hopkins Mayor Patrick Hanlon stated that ICE's presence outside the church violated the constitutional right to free exercise of religion.

Dinah Marie Chollet, a South Carolina restaurant co-owner, was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor after joining a private group chat with Summerville High School students planning a walkout against ICE. Chollet stated she joined to express support for the students' activism, shared safety information, and then left the chat. She was arrested on February 12 and released on $1,000 bond, with an initial court appearance scheduled for April 14.

Juan Nicolas, a two-month-old baby, is the youngest person currently in ICE custody and is being held with his mother Mireya López Sánchez at a family detention center in Dulles, Texas. Due to poor conditions including rotten food and contaminated water, the mother stopped producing milk and the baby became sick. The child suffered a medical emergency but has not been seen by a doctor as there is none on site and immigration officials refuse to send him to a hospital.

ICE detained a person at a trailer park in Mancos on Friday morning, which prompted a protest at the ICE field office in Durango's Bodo Industrial Park. About a dozen protesters attempted to block federal officers from leaving the facility with the detainee. Federal agents pepper sprayed the protesters and deployed Tasers to clear the entrance. Durango Police Chief Brice Current said he contacted both protesters and ICE requesting the former not break the law and the latter to de-escalate, noting this was the first physical confrontation since October when agents used pepper spray and rubber bullets on over 200 protesters.

The Trump administration is seeking to deport two men who witnessed the January 3 death of Geraldo Lunas Campos at a Texas detention camp. The eyewitness accounts of the two men differ from the Department of Homeland Security's official account of the incident.

A 31-year-old Cuban man, identified as Ricardo H., reported being beaten by approximately 15 guards at Camp East Montana detention center at Fort Bliss military base in El Paso, Texas, after spending more than 20 hours without food and banging on a metal door to request meals. According to his account documented in a Human Rights Watch and ACLU report, six agents held him down face-first, stomped on his neck, and caused injuries to his ear and collarbone. The 84-page report, based on interviews with 80 people detained at the facility between October 2025 and June 2026, documents a pattern of alleged abuses including raids by masked agents without visible identification, unsanitary conditions, and cases of people detained despite documentation of legal status. The report also documents the death of another Cuban detainee, Gerardo Lunas Campos, 55, on January 3, 2026, whose autopsy determined the cause of death was asphyxiation due to compression of the neck and torso, classified as homicide.

Sabrina Carmona Sanchez, a 41-year-old transgender woman from Ecuador, was arrested by immigration agents on January 3, 2026, at a hotel on Long Island and transferred to ICE custody at Adams County detention facility in Mississippi. She had previously been released on recognizance by Border Patrol in 2023, granted work authorization, and allowed to remain free while her immigration case proceeded. She is now held in a men's dormitory without being offered a bond hearing, in violation of her Fifth Amendment due process rights, according to her legal team at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Her habeas corpus petition challenges the government's policy of categorically denying bond hearings to undocumented immigrants arrested under the Trump administration's July 2025 detention guidance.

ICE deported a man who was apprehended in Utah. A judge has since ruled that the Trump administration must bring him back, indicating potential legal issues with the deportation proceedings.

About a dozen protesters attempted to block federal ICE agents from leaving with a detainee outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Durango on Friday. Protesters linked arms and sat in front of the ICE office driveway to prevent vehicles from departing. Federal agents responded by removing protesters and using pepper spray against them.

Deportations of Brazilian citizens from the United States reached a historic high in 2025, with more than 3 million citizens forced to return to Brazil, nearly double the 2024 total. The Ministry of Human Rights confirmed a 99.8% increase in deportations compared to the previous year. The sharp increase reflects the zero-tolerance immigration policy adopted by President Donald Trump, which has intensified enforcement actions against undocumented immigrants.

Adayomi Ademuyiwa, a Dallas resident, was deported to Nigeria by ICE in January 2026 despite a federal judge having released him on conditions months earlier. His deportation prevented him from standing trial on federal fraud and identity theft charges and blocked potential restitution to alleged victims.

During Operation Metro Surge from December 2025 through February 2026, ICE arrested over 4,000 people in Minneapolis under a reinterpretation of a 1996 law requiring detention without bond. Federal judges, including U.S. District Judge Patrick J. Schiltz, found that ICE violated court orders in at least 113 cases involving 77 people by January 28, 2026, and the violations continued thereafter. Of 66 cases examined by The Washington Post, 52 involved immigrants with pending applications for asylum or other legal status, none with final deportation orders; most were not criminals and over one-third had lived in the United States for more than a decade. The operation targeted immigrants with valid work permits, pending asylum applications, and temporary protected status despite government claims of prioritizing serious criminals.

Gabriel Espinoza Diaz, a 22-year-old undocumented community college student who had lived in the U.S. since age 4, was detained by ICE after a confrontation with security at the Strat Hotel in Las Vegas in January 2026 following a disputed threatening text message. Although charges were dropped and a judge granted voluntary departure, ICE kept him in custody and deported him to Mexico. He was transferred to an Arizona facility in a pre-dawn transfer without family notification and left at the border in Nogales, Sonora. Now living in Tijuana, Espinoza has abandoned his dream of becoming a teacher in the United States.

A Syrian citizen who entered the U.S. without inspection in January 2022 and filed for asylum is detained at the ICE Detention Center in Adelanto, California. An immigration judge denied his bond on March 27, 2026, finding him a flight risk. The court denied his ex parte application for a temporary restraining order to challenge his continued detention.

Gustavo, a restaurant cook from Mexico who had lived in Santa Barbara for seven years, was arrested by ICE agents in the lobby of Santa Barbara County jail in January 2026 as he was being released. A judge had ordered him to wear an ankle monitor and return home to await trial on a domestic dispute charge, but ICE agents—masked and armed with handcuffs—intercepted him before he could leave the facility. Gustavo had only a minor driving offense on his record, which under California's SB 54 sanctuary law should have barred local authorities from coordinating with ICE to place him in immigration custody. The arrest occurred outside official procedures in the jail lobby rather than through the authorized "sally port" transfer process, potentially violating state law.

ICE agents arrested Cesar Ramos-Alcala, 48, and Marcelino Tapia-Lucas, 25, outside courtrooms at the Ridgedale Service Center in Minnetonka on Monday. ICE alleged that Ramos-Alcala is in Minnesota illegally and that Tapia-Lucas entered the U.S. illegally at age 16 and has prior arrests. The arrests occurred in a secure, controlled courthouse environment.

Pedro Gutierrez, 43, a Durango resident for 22 years, was arrested by ICE agents on New Year's Eve while driving home from the gym. He was pulled over blocks from his home near Needham Elementary School by agents who called him by name and forcibly removed him from his vehicle in front of his 16-year-old daughter Jazmin. He was taken into custody at the Denver Contract Detention Facility in Aurora. Gutierrez has no criminal record and has worked in Durango as a dishwasher, baker, and painter; he is married with two adult children and serves as music director at a local church.

A Houston man who is a third-generation U.S. citizen says he was stopped by ICE agents on January 1 while driving to work near Veterans Memorial Drive and Beltway 8. The man, David Flores, believes he was racially profiled based on his work truck and was surrounded by eight ICE agents in multiple vehicles. After showing his passport and refusing to provide his Social Security number, the agents left abruptly when Flores began recording the encounter.

Isabel, a 41-year-old single mother of two from Honduras with a pending asylum case and valid five-year work permit, was arrested at her monthly immigration check-in in Bloomington. She was detained for four days across three facilities before a federal judge ordered her release with her belongings. However, ICE returned only her wallet and checks; her work permit, state ID, daughter's U.S. passport, and over $700 in checks were withheld. Despite the judge's order, ICE has not returned the documents, leaving her unable to work or travel without fear of arrest.