Human Impact Project

Marie Ange Blaise, a 44-year-old Haitian woman, died on April 25, 2025, at Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach, Florida, after spending more than 10 weeks in ICE custody. She had been detained since mid-February after being stopped at an airport in Saint Croix, Virgin Islands without a valid immigrant visa, and was transferred through multiple facilities including San Juan, Krome North Processing Center in Miami, and a Louisiana facility. According to fellow detainees, Blaise experienced what appeared to be a seizure while in a kneeling position. When other women began screaming for help, guards ignored their pleas. One officer approached, looked at Blaise without intervening, and walked away. It took approximately eight minutes for a medical provider to arrive and another 15 to 20 minutes for a rescue team. She was pronounced dead shortly after. Following her death, facility staff told the women to stop making comments about what they had witnessed.

A 2-year-old U.S. citizen was apparently removed to Honduras on Friday with her mother, who had been ordered deported, according to a federal judge in Louisiana. The child's mother, a Honduran national, was seized by ICE on Tuesday morning in New Orleans while attending a scheduled check-in appointment with an Intensive Supervision Appearance Program office. During approximately three days in ICE custody, the mother and her two daughters were separated from family and legal counsel. U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty wrote that the child was sent to Honduras "with no meaningful due process" and expressed "strong suspicion that the Government just deported a U.S. citizen." The mother's attorney stated that ICE mischaracterized the removal as the mother's voluntary choice and that she was pregnant and prevented from contacting lawyers or family to make arrangements.

A U.S. citizen was detained along with two people of unknown legal status by masked ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations agents near Marts Donuts on W. El Norte Parkway in Escondido on April 25 around 7:40 a.m. The man, a passenger in a truck with his in-laws on their way to breakfast, said agents boxed in the vehicle, broke the driver's side window, and handcuffed him, leaving marks on his wrists. He said he was held for about 30 minutes and driven without a seatbelt to Rancho Bernardo, during which an agent accused him of being from Guatemala before he was released.

Martín Majín was detained by federal agents outside his barbershop in Pomona on Tuesday, with the arrest captured on security camera video showing agents approaching with weapons. He was released Wednesday after an immigration judge granted his release without bail. Majín, who was deported nearly 20 years ago and returned to the United States unauthorized months later, is scheduled to appear before an immigration judge again on May 29 in Los Angeles court.

Terez Metry was detained by immigration agents during a routine meeting at the Department of Homeland Security office on Brick Church Pike in Nashville. She had submitted Form I-130 as the first step toward obtaining a Green Card to become a U.S. citizen like her husband of three years. Her husband believes she is being taken to Louisiana for removal proceedings despite following immigration procedures carefully.

The wife of an active-duty Coast Guard officer assigned to USCGC Mohawk was arrested by Homeland Security Investigations during a routine security screening at Naval Air Station Key West on Thursday. The couple had married in early 2025 and were preparing to move into on-base family housing when the woman's name was flagged during visitor control processing. Her work visa had expired around 2017, and she had been marked for removal several years prior. NCIS contacted HSI, and agents entered the base housing to take her into custody. The woman's country of origin and current detention status remain unclear, though officials believe she is still being detained.

Detained immigrants at Adelanto ICE Processing Center in San Bernardino County, which holds about 2,000 people, continue to report contaminated drinking water, with vector control experts identifying the worm-like creatures as drain fly larvae. The claims follow a federal judge's order weeks earlier requiring major changes at the facility, including 24-hour access to clean drinking water. Detainees, including one identified as Carlitos Ricardo Parias, have documented the contamination on video to show family members, saying they fear retaliation if they report it to staff. Some detainees say they strain water through clothing, boil it, or buy bottled water from the commissary, and several reported illness and vomiting they attribute to the water; the facility has previously faced complaints about murky water and improperly cooked food.

ICE arrested a Dominican national in Providence on April 24 after he became combative during an attempted arrest. Officers deployed a taser when he allegedly attempted to grab an officer's belt. The man was brought to Rhode Island Hospital, where about 85 protesters gathered. His attorney reported being denied access to his client despite having legal representation documentation.

Amilcar Lisser-Posadas, a 29-year-old Honduran national and former DACA recipient with two U.S. citizen daughters, was apprehended in Shelby County, Tennessee in March 2025 for driving with an expired license and transferred to ICE custody. He was moved between multiple detention facilities over four weeks and filed a legal request citing fear of persecution in Honduras, which received no response. At Alexandria Staging Facility, he was detained for approximately 12 days in overcrowded conditions with inadequate sanitation, food, and medical care—arriving sick with chest congestion, fever, and ear infection but receiving no medication until the final two days. On April 23, 2025, he was deported to Honduras on GlobalX charter flights despite his pending legal request. He was later apprehended again at the southern border in May 2025 attempting to reunite with his family and is now facing deportation again from a federal prison.

Rosmery Alvarado, 42, a Kansas resident born in Guatemala, was arrested by ICE agents immediately after completing a spousal green card interview at the USCIS office in Kansas City on April 23, 2025. She is now facing deportation to Guatemala and is being held in detention, despite her family believing her petition had been approved. The arrest occurred after ICE agents waited for her husband to step out of the interview room before detaining and handcuffing her.

Unaccompanied migrant children, including a 4-year-old girl, are appearing in immigration court proceedings without legal representation after the Trump administration terminated a $200 million federal contract funding legal services for minors. Data shows nearly all children without attorneys are deported, compared to 23% of those with representation.

A family of six asylum seekers from southwestern Africa — parents Josefina and José and their four children, ages 13, 10, 5 and 11 months — were held in a single windowless cell at a CBP facility in Blaine, Washington for about a month starting in April 2025, according to an ACLU complaint. Josefina, who was five months into a high-risk pregnancy, was hospitalized twice during the detention after CBP staff allegedly kept her in unsafe conditions despite hospital warnings, and she suffered pregnancy complications. The children reportedly went weeks without mental stimulation or physical activity, and the 13-year-old was allegedly handcuffed when taken to shower. The ACLU of Washington filed a federal claim seeking $15 million in damages from the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection, one of 54 such claims filed nationwide in July under the Federal Tort Claims Act.

Daniela, known as Ari on social media, was detained by ICE agents on April 22 while attending her scheduled monthly immigration check-in appointment. Her family and friends have launched a fundraising campaign to cover legal fees and support efforts to secure her release.

ICE agents conducted an enforcement operation outside a Home Depot in Pomona, Los Angeles County on the morning of April 22, 2025, detaining between 10 and 20 day laborers who were waiting for work. The operation initially targeted one individual with an active arrest warrant and resulted in the detention of additional undocumented migrants. Three of the men, identified as Jesus Domingo Ros, Edwin Juarez and Johnny Garcia, were later transferred to ICE custody and held at a detention facility in Calexico. On May 6, community activists and immigration rights advocates held a rally outside Pomona City Hall demanding fair bond hearings and due process for the three men, coinciding with a scheduled court hearing in their cases.

Brandon Gonzalez has lived in Arizona since infancy. His family came to the United States from Mexico in 1999. On July 14, Gonzalez was detained by immigration enforcement.

Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, a 20-year-old U.S. citizen born in Cairo, Georgia, who grew up speaking the Indigenous Maya language Tzotzil after moving to Mexico as an infant before returning to the U.S. four years ago, was arrested by Florida Highway Patrol on April 16, 2025 after being stopped for speeding while riding as a passenger with two men carrying Guatemalan IDs. He was charged under Florida's Senate Bill 4C, a state law criminalizing unauthorized entry that had been temporarily blocked by court order, despite presenting a Georgia ID. He was held at Leon County Jail on an ICE detainer without food, even after his mother, Sebastiana Gomez-Perez, and a community advocate presented his birth certificate and Social Security card. A Leon County judge confirmed his citizenship and found no probable cause for his detention, but said she lacked jurisdiction to order his release because ICE had requested a 48-hour hold. After roughly 30 hours in custody, he was released and reunited with his mother amid a crowd of protesters outside the jail, following public advocacy from civil rights advocates, journalists, and elected officials.

Josue Coreas-Chavek, 29, from El Salvador, was arrested by ICE Buffalo on April 18, 2025, immediately after his release from Wyoming Correctional Facility. He had been sentenced in January 2025 to three years of incarceration and five years of supervised release for second-degree attempted robbery, conspiracy, and criminal facilitation. He faces additional pending charges including robbery, kidnapping, assault, coercion, unlawful imprisonment, and grand larceny, and is in ICE custody pending removal proceedings.

Carlos, a Venezuelan national with approved Temporary Protected Status, was detained by ICE in February despite having valid TPS. He describes detention conditions as prison-like, with expensive phone calls and inadequate medical care. Nearly 48,000 people are currently in ICE custody, the highest number since 2019, as advocates demand releases and an end to mass detention expansion.

Manny, an 18-year-old U.S. citizen from North Carolina, was detained by masked armed ICE agents on November 19, 2025, while sleeping in his work truck. He was later interviewed by The Hometown Holler.

Two hundred migrants, including 80 children from Afghanistan, Russia, Armenia, Iran, China and other Asian countries, were deported from the United States on two flights and detained at Costa Rica's CATEM immigration detention center in February 2025. Many were separated from family members still in the U.S., not informed of their deportation destination, and experienced abuse and rights violations in U.S. detention before being sent to Costa Rica.