Human Impact Project

Iara do Carmo Santana, a 29-year-old Brazilian woman recovering from a miscarriage, surgery and subsequent infection, was arrested by Malden police after her fiancé, Gabriel Lemos, called 911 out of concern for her mental health; she was charged with domestic violence. After being released from police custody, she was detained by ICE agents waiting outside and taken to an ICE field office in Burlington, where she said she was denied a medical assessment, a Portuguese interpreter, and consistent antibiotics and pain medication for roughly four days as her infection worsened. Her lawyers filed a habeas petition alleging ICE violated her due process rights given her recent surgery, and U.S. District Judge Leo T. Sorokin ordered her release, calling the lack of medical care 'a serious issue' and the Burlington facility's conditions 'troubling as a systemic matter.' Santana had applied for asylum and held employment authorization working as a house cleaner; she is engaged to Lemos, a lawful permanent resident, and has since been reunited with him and her six-year-old son, though her domestic violence case remains pending and she still faces possible deportation.

More than 300 South Korean workers among 475 people detained in a September 4, 2025 immigration raid at the Hyundai-LG battery plant in Ellabell, Georgia have begun filing administrative claims against nine federal agencies, the first step toward a federal lawsuit. The claims note that the search warrant used to enter the plant named only four targets, who court records describe as Hispanic, not Korean. Workers, including a lead organizer identified only as Kim, allege they were shackled, denied interpreters, pressured to sign documents they could not read, and held for about a week in overcrowded, cold cells with limited food and sanitation at a detention facility in Folkston, Georgia. One worker, Ryu, said he lost nearly 10 pounds in custody, while another, Choi, said he has since returned to work at the same plant but wants a government apology; Hyundai and LG have publicly distanced themselves from the litigation.

M., who prefers to use only her first initial, was forcibly separated from her two-year-old U.S.-citizen child during a raid at the Nutrition Bar Confectioners factory. Despite showing agents her work permit, Social Security documentation, and evidence of a pending asylum appeal, she was sent to a detention facility in Texas and then deported to Guatemala. She is now a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the ICE and CBP agents involved in the raid.

Eddie, a worker at the Nutrition Bar Confectioners factory who had lived in the U.S. for twenty years and held a work permit, was arrested during a federal raid and deported to Guatemala within 72 hours. His wife is now struggling to care for their two boys alone while working overtime and coping with depression over the sudden separation. He is a plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking to allow him to return to the U.S. and reunite with his family.

Pedro Rojas, a U.S. citizen born in Puerto Rico, was working at the Nutrition Bar Confectioners factory in Cato, New York, when armed federal agents raided the site on Sept. 4, 2025. After identifying himself as a citizen, he was still required to show identification and provide contact information before being allowed to leave. Newly released body camera footage, cited in a lawsuit filed Sept. 10, 2026 alleging investigators overstepped their search warrants, shows the hours-long raid in which 57 people were arrested and employees were separated into groups based on citizenship status. Rojas remains a plaintiff in the suit, which alleges the raid targeted Latino workers based on ethnicity.

On September 4, 2025, roughly 60 armed and masked federal agents from Homeland Security Investigations, ICE, CBP and local sheriff's offices raided the Nutrition Bar Confectioners plant in Cato, New York, a town of 2,500 people east of Syracuse. Officers broke down a locked bathroom door on female employees, herded over 100 workers into a break room, and separated them by citizenship status without individualized suspicion, questioning pregnant employees and parents worried about children waiting at home. Investigators also interviewed the plant's general manager about hiring practices and potential fraudulent documents, while officers searched offices, storage rooms and hallways for anyone in hiding and debated which company files to seize. At least 57 workers were arrested, more than 20 were separated from their children, and some were denied access to attorneys or family before being sent to out-of-state detention facilities. Pedro Rojas, a U.S. citizen who was seized and interrogated, said agents targeted him and his coworkers because they are Latino. Only five of those arrested faced criminal charges, the most serious being unlawful reentry, and two plaintiffs were deported, though one has since been allowed to reenter the country. The NYCLU and the Worker Justice Center of New York filed a class action lawsuit against DHS alleging officers exceeded their search warrants and violated workers' Fourth Amendment rights, and body camera footage reviewed by the Associated Press as part of that lawsuit has now become public.

Federal agents raided the Hyundai Motor Group electric vehicle megasite in Bryan County, Georgia, arresting about 475 workers in what Homeland Security Investigations called the largest single-site immigration enforcement action in its history. Search warrants indicated investigators were probing a conspiracy to harbor undocumented workers and other illegal employment practices, and agents seized employment verification documents, computers, and storage drives. About 300 of those detained were South Korean nationals, and the South Korean government negotiated their return home, while other workers were processed through the immigration system without diplomatic intervention. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung condemned the raid, warning it could deter future Korean investment in the United States. One year later, the Department of Justice confirmed no criminal charges have been filed and the federal court case is closed, with no consequences for the companies that hired the workers.

A 24-year-old Guatemalan man who became a legal U.S. resident two years earlier was briefly detained, photographed, and released during a raid by federal agents, including Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations, at Nutrition Bar Confectioners in Cato, New York. His partner, who lacks legal status, was among dozens of workers taken away by agents before he could speak to her, and he did not know where she had been detained. Plant owner Lenny Schmidt said all employees had been vetted and had legal documentation, called the raid "terrifying," and said he would have cooperated if notified beforehand. Cayuga County Sheriff Brian Schenck said deputies assisted HSI in executing a search warrant tied to an ongoing criminal investigation, prompting state Sen. Rachel May to question why workers were detained.

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.

ICE officers arrested Helda Araceli Mendez-Merida, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, during a targeted immigration enforcement operation in Indianapolis on September 3. DHS said Mendez-Merida had voted unlawfully in a past national election. She entered the United States through Arizona in September 2015, was apprehended by Border Patrol, and was released into the country under the Obama Administration; a DOJ immigration judge issued her a final order of removal on September 3, 2019.

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.

ICE agents, assisted by Mahoning Township Police, conducted a raid at a Geisinger construction project on September 2, with local police saying 10 people were detained rather than the 40 initially rumored. Advocacy groups, including the Pennsylvania Immigration Coalition and Centre County Rapid Response Network, later said more than 40 construction workers from countries including Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras were detained that day, with additional arrests occurring on September 8. An ICE spokesperson said those arrested in Danville face felony charges of illegal reentry after prior removal by a DOJ immigration judge.

Mahoning Township police conducted multiple traffic stops on Sept. 2 and, after determining some occupants were undocumented, transferred them to ICE custody, according to Police Chief Fred Dyroff. The stops occurred under the township's 287(g) agreement with ICE, entered into in April, which allows designated local officers to assist with immigration enforcement duties. Township Supervisor Chairman Bill Lynn said the township's focus is on people without legal status who also have criminal records.

At the Broadview detention center in Illinois, a masked agent put a protester in a chokehold and had to be pulled off by another agent. The woman was sprayed in the face with a chemical irritant, shot with projectiles, and violently pushed and shoved to the ground before the chokehold.

In Broadview, Illinois, federal officers used force against photojournalists documenting protest activity from public streets. Dave Decker, a photojournalist visibly wearing press credentials, described agents about 20 feet away on the other side of a fence aiming weapons toward him and a photographer, Leigh Kunkel, as they were partially shielded by a van. He heard popping noises and was struck in the arm and back. Kunkel was also injured. He also photographed an agent pointing a long gun at his camera. The next day, as he recorded officers pushing people to the ground and laughing, an agent fired a pepper ball toward his face from about 30 feet away and hit his camera. He was later shot in the legs at close range after an agent said, 'Get him.' Decker, who had covered hundreds of protests, said he had never seen law enforcement hostility like what he witnessed at Broadview.

In Colorado, after Routt County Commissioner Angelica Salinas recorded agents from her vehicle stopping people and patrolling mobile home parks near Steamboat Springs, she reported that she was followed and boxed in at a nearby post office. Agents left when they saw her husband. An ICE spokesperson later called her account a "blatant and pathetic lie," releasing a photo it said showed her car on a road in Oak Creek, while Salinas maintained that armed, masked agents in unmarked vehicles had been positioned behind and beside her car.

Six people were detained by federal agents outside two homeless shelters in the Chicago area in separate incidents.

In Naperville, Illinois, five roofers working on a home were detained during a Sept. 17 immigration enforcement operation while the homeowners were away. Homeowner Bobby Fischer said neighbors reported agents removing ladders and chasing a worker down the street with guns drawn, forcing workers to jump from the roof, with one injured before being detained; he said he later learned all the workers were properly documented. ICE Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin disputed the ladder claim, saying agents arrested four people in the country illegally during a 'targeted immigration enforcement operation.' One roofer told a local station, 'It's very hard what is happening to us. It's a lot of harm that they're doing to us.'

In Hyattsville, Maryland, federal agents pinned a man in a busy intersection, pressing against his neck, when one agent dropped his gun. After scrambling to retrieve it, the agent turned the weapon toward the crowd of bystanders. A second agent later drew his weapon and moved toward bystanders.