Human Impact Project

Two U.S. citizens were stopped by ICE agents in North Carolina. When the men began recording the encounter, agents attempted to stop the filming and escalated the stop to violence. Civil rights advocates stated the stop violated the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

A 17-year-old girl was detained by ICE agents along with her mother after agents entered their apartment complex. The family was transported to the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, where the girl remained detained as of the article's publication.

A fifth-grade girl from Valley View Elementary was detained at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, along with her mother and stepfather. The school district lost contact with the family on January 9, 2026, and did not know where they were. Her detention was discovered when two schoolmates, who had been detained and then released, recognized her in the detention facility cafeteria. As of the article's publication, the girl remained detained at Dilley.

Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz, a 68-year-old Honduran national who had lived in the U.S. for decades, died on January 6, 2026, at John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital in Indio while in ICE custody. He was arrested during an ICE enforcement operation in Newark, New Jersey, on November 16, 2025, and transferred to the Imperial Regional Detention Facility in Calexico. While detained, he complained of vomiting, stomach pain, chest pain, and shortness of breath for over a week, but medical staff only provided pain pills without diagnosing the underlying cause. He was transferred to El Centro Regional Medical Center on January 4 after developing chest pain, then airlifted to JFK Memorial Hospital in Indio, where he was pronounced dead two days later. Medical personnel determined the cause was heart-related complications. His family was not notified until after his death and later questioned the quality and timeliness of his medical care.

A Cuban citizen who entered the U.S. through the CBP-1 Application in January 2025 was arrested for a moving traffic violation in Miami-Dade County, Florida on January 6, 2026, and subsequently transferred to ICE custody. He was later detained at California City Detention Facility in California. The court granted his habeas corpus petition and ordered the government to provide him with an individualized bond hearing within 14 days.

Angel Camacho, a Venezuelan asylum seeker with temporary protected status and a valid work permit, was arrested by Border Patrol agents at a Dania Beach station on January 6, 2025, despite being cleared and approved to perform IT work there. Camacho is married to a U.S. citizen, has American-born children, and was in the process of applying for permanent residency at the time of his detention. He spent 30 days detained at an Everglades detention facility before being released on bond.

Ken Ofori-Atta was released from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody on April 8, 2026, following a judicial order. His detention originated from administrative compliance flags linked to investigations by Ghana's Office of the Special Prosecutor into allegations of corruption during his tenure as Finance Minister. Ofori-Atta had entered the United States legally and his legal team argued the detention resulted from a procedural misunderstanding rather than criminal violations. He has reunited with his family in the United States.

Rebecca Pinyerd, a 70-year-old Filipina lawful permanent resident who has lived in the United States for over 40 years, was scheduled for deportation to the Philippines but the flight was cancelled after airline officials determined she was medically unfit to fly due to advanced kidney disease, thyroid complications, and uncontrolled hypertension. She remains in immigration detention at Clay County Jail in Indiana with no new deportation date announced. Her family has expressed concerns about her access to medical care while in custody and has called for an independent medical evaluation.

Joey Martinez, a U.S. Coast Guard veteran and U.S. citizen, was mistakenly detained by CBP officers aboard a Carnival Cruise Lines ship in Miami after being identified by name match with someone else who had outstanding warrants. Despite only his name matching and his other identifying information not aligning with the warrant, Martinez was forcefully removed from his stateroom, handcuffed, and held in an immigration cell until he could verify his identity with official documents. He was eventually released without charges, compensation, or an apology, and Carnival Cruise Lines did not inform him of the name issue before the ship's arrival despite allegedly being aware of it.

ICE took a 5-year-old girl and her mother into custody after Austin police responded to a disturbance call in the Oak Hill community on January 5th. Officers identified the mother had an ICE administrative warrant and notified federal authorities who took both into custody. The family says the child is a U.S. citizen and reports no effort was made to contact family or involve Child Protective Services before the ICE custody transfer.

Ramón Barraza, a 60-year-old Mexican national from Sinaloa who worked as a certified public accountant in Mexico and spent two decades installing ceramic tile floors in Phoenix, was pulled over by unmarked ICE SUVs while driving to a job site in the Maryvale neighborhood. Plainclothes agents with no visible identification, who appeared to have tracked his truck through license-plate data, boxed him in with multiple vehicles, addressed him in Spanish, and told him 'you're the one we came for' before handcuffing him. He was held for 26 hours in an overcrowded, windowless cell at ICE's Central Avenue processing office with about 25 other people, given only a frozen bean burrito every six hours, no water or fruit, and was denied a phone call to his family for hours. An agent later prepared voluntary departure paperwork himself and pressured Barraza to sign it, telling him it would let his girlfriend later petition for his legal reentry.

A man granted withholding of removal to Nicaragua was ordered removed to Nicaragua on January 25, 2023, and granted withholding of removal under 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3). He was released from immigration custody that same day. On January 5, 2026, ICE re-detained him and sought to remove him to Mexico, a third country not listed in his removal order. The court granted his habeas corpus petition and ordered his immediate release, finding that respondents failed to meet their burden to justify continued detention where removal to his country of removal (Nicaragua) was barred by withholding of removal.

Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres, a 42-year-old Honduran man with no criminal history, died on January 5, 2026 at HCA Houston Healthcare in Conroe, Texas after complications from congestive heart failure. He was detained by ICE on November 17, 2025 while on his way to work and initially held at Montgomery Processing Center before being transferred to Joe Corley ICE Processing Center on November 25. Despite repeated requests, he was unable to access medication needed to manage his congenital heart condition while in ICE custody. He was hospitalized on December 23, 2025 for worsening heart complications, admitted to intensive care on December 31 after multiple severe medical episodes, and died on January 5. His family faced a $4,000 cost to transport his body to Honduras for burial.

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.