Human Impact Project

Axel Pecero, 25, a former Los Angeles County foster youth and advocate for youth in child welfare and juvenile justice systems, was detained by ICE in August 2025 after being stopped by Burbank police. After nearly eight months of detention at Adelanto ICE Processing Center, an immigration judge denied his bond request. Pecero agreed to voluntary departure to Mexico, leaving behind his 4-year-old son in the United States.

Over 1,100 Afghan refugees, many of whom served alongside U.S. forces, are at Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar. Since February 28, 2026, residents have experienced missile attacks and are housed in shipping containers. President Trump suspended their refugee resettlement program in 2025. The refugees remain in Qatar with unresolved immigration status.

An asylum seeker was detained on March 4, 2026 at Eden Detention Center while his asylum application remains pending. He filed an emergency motion seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent his removal and requesting immediate release or an individualized bond hearing. The federal court denied his motion, finding he failed to meet the requirements for emergency relief.

An immigration detainee who entered the U.S. without inspection in December 2021 was initially detained then released on his own recognizance with restrictive conditions. After more than four years of compliance with all conditions, he was arrested and detained by immigration authorities on March 4, 2026, without notice or process. The court granted his habeas petition and ordered his immediate release, finding his detention violated constitutional due process rights. He was arrested and detained by immigration authorities on March 4, 2026, after previously being released under certain conditions. He filed a habeas corpus petition challenging his immigration detention as violations of due process and federal immigration law. The court granted his unopposed petition and ordered his immediate release under the same conditions as his prior release.

Arnoldo Jose Marquez-Pulido, 33, was arrested on March 4, 2026, outside a Sam's Club in Utica after resisting federal agents conducting surveillance based on reports of undocumented immigrants working as delivery drivers. During the altercation, Marquez-Pulido grabbed a Homeland Security agent's firearm and injured two investigators before being tackled. He faces federal charges of assaulting and resisting an officer and illegal firearm possession, with a potential sentence of up to 20 years if convicted.

Estefany Rodriguez, a reporter for Spanish-language outlet Nashville Noticias, was arrested by ICE agents on March 4, 2026 after agents surveilled her leaving home with her husband and 7-year-old daughter in a car bearing the news outlet's logo, then pulled the couple over after the child was dropped off at school. She was held for 15 days in federal detention facilities in Alabama and Louisiana before her release on a $10,000 bond. Rodriguez's attorneys argued her arrest, initial denial of bond, and transfer out of state amounted to unconstitutional retaliation for her reporting on ICE, but a federal judge dismissed those claims on procedural grounds, finding they were improperly raised in a habeas corpus petition and that the case was moot following her release. Rodriguez has filed for asylum based on threats she received while reporting on government corruption in Colombia and is now seeking permanent status through her husband, a U.S. citizen.

A citizen of El Salvador who has lived in the United States for approximately 20 years, having entered on November 26, 2005, has a United States citizen child and has worked in the country with no prior removal order. On March 4, 2026, ICE officers apprehended him in Simi Valley, California during a field operation as he exited his vehicle. Officers did not provide him a warrant until after arrest and did not provide a pre-deprivation opportunity to contest his detention. He has been held at Desert View Annex in Adelanto, California since his detention and has never received a bond hearing before an immigration judge, with no neutral decisionmaker reviewing whether his continued detention was warranted. He sought immediate release under reasonable conditions of supervision through an emergency motion for temporary restraining order. On August 4, 2026, the federal court granted his motion and ordered his immediate release, finding he demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits of his due process claim under the Mathews v. Eldridge test and that he would suffer irreparable harm from continued unlawful detention.

Syed Abbas, an Indian national from New York, was detained by Iowa State Patrol and ICE officers on March 4, 2026, while traveling through Iowa as a commercial truck driver. Abbas had been granted work authorization in 2024 and had a pending asylum application at the time of his arrest. State troopers pulled over his vehicle after the driver failed to stop at a weigh station, checked Abbas's immigration status despite him not being the driver, and concluded he was in the U.S. without authorization, then transferred him to Polk County Jail. Abbas's attorney has filed a federal lawsuit against ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, and Polk County, arguing his due process rights were violated when he was deprived of liberty without notice, hearing, or individualized justification.

Orlin Carrasco, 29, was detained by ICE agents on March 4, 2026, inside Robertson County Courthouse after appearing before a judge on traffic charges. Carrasco had entered the U.S. as an unaccompanied minor at age 17 to flee gang recruitment in Honduras. At the time of his detention, he had an active asylum case, a valid work permit, a driver's license, and was married to a U.S. citizen. He has been held in a Louisiana detention facility for over three months without a clear explanation or active deportation order. His attorney argues ICE is illegally detaining him under a void document and that his 2013 administratively closed case does not support mandatory detention.

A Guatemalan national who entered the U.S. on a Visa Waiver Program is detained by ICE and challenging his mandatory civil detention through a federal habeas corpus petition. He has a child in the United States, lives with the mother of his child, has resided at the same address for several years, and has construction employment. He was arrested following what his counsel characterizes as a selective, racially targeted ICE field operation. His only cited criminal history involves two alcohol-related driving matters: a November 2023 plea to driving while ability impaired (classified as a traffic infraction under New York law) resulting in a conditional discharge, $300 fine, and 90-day license suspension, and an earlier dismissed and sealed matter. The Immigration Judge found him a danger and flight risk and set no bond. He seeks immediate release pending adjudication of his habeas petition and asylum claim, proposing strict conditions including a $10,000 cash posting, driver's license surrender, absolute driving prohibition, home detention or curfew, and alcohol treatment and testing.

A Cuban citizen who entered the U.S. in 2019 was re-arrested by ICE on March 4, 2026, during a routine maritime inspection on a fishing vessel in Florida. He had previously been released on bond by an immigration judge and had employment authorization through April 2030. The federal court ordered his immediate release, finding that his re-detention without a pre-deprivation hearing violated due process.

Irvin Cruz Nape, a father of four, died on March 4, 2026, days after being released from the Adelanto ICE Processing Center. Cruz Nape reported heart attack-like symptoms while in custody but allegedly did not receive proper medical treatment. He had been detained by ICE agents in the fall after being mistaken for another target, and was granted bond and released in late February.

ICE is deporting crime survivors who have long been protected by Congress through programs like the U-Visa, Violence Against Women Act, and T-Visa for trafficking survivors. A multi-state class-action lawsuit challenges the Trump administration's 2025 ICE guidance that rescinds policies protecting these groups from deportation. Plaintiff Yessenia Ruano, a former Milwaukee teacher's aide with a pending T-Visa application, self-deported to El Salvador with her U.S. citizen children after ICE threatened her during a check-in.

A Laotian refugee who entered the United States in 1988 as a child refugee and was adjusted to lawful permanent resident status was detained by ICE on March 3, 2026, when he reported to the ICE office in Portland, Oregon. He was taken to the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington. He has a U.S. citizen spouse, one child, and four step-children. A final removal order to Laos was entered on January 5, 2012, but he had been released on Orders of Supervision since May 2015 based on nonremovability. On January 8, 2026, his spouse filed an I-130 Petition for Alien Relative. He was served with a Notice of Revocation of Release citing changed circumstances making removal reasonably foreseeable. On April 10, 2026, ICE obtained a Laissez-Passer from Laos valid for 90 days. He filed a habeas corpus petition and motion for temporary restraining order seeking to prevent his removal and transfer pending the court's consideration of his case. On May 1, 2026, the federal magistrate judge denied his motion, finding he had not shown a likelihood of success on the merits because ICE had obtained a valid travel document establishing an unchallenged basis for his detention.

A noncitizen who had been previously released on bond or conditional parole was re-detained by immigration authorities on March 3, 2026. The court found that the Due Process Clause requires the government to provide a pre-deprivation bond hearing before a neutral arbiter when re-detaining someone who was previously released. The court ordered his immediate release with the same conditions he had prior to detention.

An immigration detainee who had previously been released on bond or conditional parole was re-detained on March 3, 2026. The court found that the government violated due process by re-detaining him without providing a pre-deprivation bond hearing before a neutral arbiter. The court ordered his immediate release with the same conditions he had prior to detention and required the government to provide seven days' notice and a proper hearing before any future re-detention.

Jorge Calderon Rivera, an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador who had lived in Omaha for approximately a decade with no criminal record, was detained by ICE agents on January 17, 2026, during a traffic stop while driving to work. He was held at McCook ICE facility for two months without receiving a bond hearing to which he was entitled. The ACLU of Nebraska and the Center for Immigrant and Refugee Advancement filed a federal lawsuit on his behalf challenging the detention. U.S. District Judge Susan Bazis issued an order on March 3, 2026, finding the detention had an "unlawful aspect" and directing immigration officials to provide Calderon with a bond hearing within seven days. An immigration judge later granted his release on bond, and he was reunited with his wife and three children. He remains in deportation proceedings.

Irvi Cruz, an undocumented Mexican national married to Rachel, a U.S. citizen public school teacher, decided to self-deport to Mexico with their two U.S.-born daughters after the 2024 presidential election. Despite building a life in New York over nearly two decades, including home ownership and stable employment, the family chose to leave voluntarily due to the political climate and deportation threats. Irvi departed first in early 2025 before Trump took office, with Rachel and the girls planning to follow after the school year.

Daniel Pino Alfonso, a Cuban national who entered the U.S. unlawfully in 2022, was arrested March 3 in Spring Hill, Tennessee for stealing approximately $6,000 worth of shoes and possessing $3,400 in cash as part of an organized retail theft operation. ICE issued a detainer against Pino Alfonso, who remains in county jail pending deportation proceedings. His accomplice, Yadián Pérez López, was also arrested. Both men were charged under Tennessee's organized retail crime law, and authorities indicated the pair may have targeted multiple stores.

Two bounty hunters, Garrett C. Willis and James R. Willis, were charged with felony threats of violence after confrontations with anti-ICE protesters in Minneapolis on March 3. During two incidents—one in the Phillips West neighborhood and another outside Hennepin County jail—the men pointed replica firearms at protesters and fired pepper ball munitions. Both men admitted to carrying weapons that resembled real firearms and using them against protesters.