Human Impact Project

Sam Behpoor, a restaurateur and manager of Pismo's Coastal Grill, was released on bond after being held in ICE custody for over eight months beginning June 23, 2025, when he attended an immigration interview. Behpoor had lost his green card following a 2004 non-aggravated burglary conviction and was detained while attempting to reinstate it. An immigration judge determined he did not pose a danger to the community or flight risk, allowing him to post bond and return home to his wife and toddler. The Governor had pardoned his 2004 conviction in November.

On November 21, 2025, ICE agents detained Christian Jimenez, a 17-year-old U.S. citizen and McMinnville High School senior, during lunch break in Oregon. Despite asserting his citizenship, agents broke his car window and transported him to an ICE facility in South Portland before releasing him later that day. The detention was part of ICE sweeps in Yamhill County that week resulting in at least 7 total detentions, including at least 4 U.S. citizens. The incident occurred off school grounds but was witnessed by students in the area. A protest was held in response. The McMinnville School District confirmed increased ICE activity in the community while noting that agents have not entered school buildings.

Bryan Cuautle Romero, 29, a long-term U.S. resident married to a U.S. citizen with two U.S. citizen children, was detained at West Tennessee Detention Facility in Mason on November 21, 2025, after checking in at an ICE office. ICE invoked a mandatory detention policy for individuals without admission or inspection. Despite a subsequent Sixth Circuit Court ruling against the mandatory detention policy in May 2026, Bryan had already accepted voluntary deportation to Mexico with a final removal date of June 6, 2026. His wife Lauren plans to pursue an I-130 petition to bring him back to the United States.

Alejandro Orrego Agudelo, a 27-year-old Colombian asylum seeker, was arrested by Boston police on November 21 after a dispute over a parking space on Falcon Street in East Boston. He was charged with assault and battery on a police officer and released by a judge that same day at East Boston District Court. However, ICE agents arrested him in the courthouse lockup and detained him for four months at Plymouth County jail under the Laken Riley Act. After legal challenges including a habeas corpus petition and dismissal of criminal charges, an immigration judge granted him bond, and he was released.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted enforcement operations in Long Beach on Thursday, resulting in at least nine detentions at workplaces. Mayor Rex Richardson and Supervisor Janice Hahn commented on the operations, with Richardson referencing a violent incident involving a gardener at a restaurant. DHS stated six people in the country without authorization from Mexico were arrested who had prior criminal histories.

Two U.S. citizen women were detained by ICE agents in Canby on Thursday after filming the agents in a parking lot. They were held for hours without access to an attorney before being released. The Oregon for All coalition, which reported the detentions, noted the women have chosen to remain anonymous due to fears of retaliation. The detentions occurred during ICE sweeps in Yamhill County that resulted in at least seven other arrests.

ICE agents detained a 16-year-old high school intern at the Licht Judicial Complex in Providence on November 20, 2025, after misidentifying the teenager as their target. Superior Court Judge Joseph J. McBurney intervened, and agents verified their information and released the intern. Governor Dan McKee and Lieutenant Governor Sabina Matos issued statements regarding the incident.

Federal immigration agents detained a gardener in Long Beach's University Park Estates neighborhood on January 21, 2026, after he fled into a restaurant. The man claimed to be a dual citizen and showed agents an identification card during the detention. Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson criticized the operation as an "abduction" and said it reflected "a pattern of enforcement rooted in fear and intimidation."

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been holding 23-year-old Eric Sebastian Ferrales, a Laveen landscaper who has lived in the United States since age 3, for two weeks. Although Ferrales lacks legal status, his family states the U.S. is the only country he has ever truly known. He now faces deportation proceedings.

Victor Rodriguez Ocampo Sr., 54, longtime owner of La Playa Taco Shop in Pacific Beach, was detained by ICE agents outside his National City home on Oct. 31, 2025. He was held at Otay Mesa Detention Center before being deported to Mexico in January 2026. His son, Victor Jr., ran the restaurant in his absence before joining the Navy, and the taco shop, which had served the community for 30 years, permanently closed on Sept. 19, 2026.

Emmanuel Gonzalez-Garcia, a 16-year-old with autism, was separated from his mother Maria Garcia on October 4-5, 2025, while they were selling fruit as street vendors in Houston. After going missing, he was located by firefighters during a welfare check and told police he was homeless, providing a different name. Houston police turned him over to ICE, and he was placed in federal custody with the Office of Refugee Resettlement as an unaccompanied immigrant minor. After approximately 48-50 days in detention, a federal judge ruled that authorities lacked legal authority to detain him since he was not truly unaccompanied. He was reunited with his mother, though their immigration court cases remain pending.

ICE conducted a raid at a Koreatown plaza in Los Angeles. A security guard at the location reported that approximately 10 people were detained during the operation. The guard stated that shoppers were present at businesses in the plaza including Speakeasy Fitness and Food 4 Less.

A U.S. Border Patrol officer in Key Largo, Florida threatened to arrest a 64-year-old legal observer for following an unmarked CBP vehicle and recording the encounter, according to cell phone video posted on Instagram. In the footage, the officer warns the man he will be pulled over and arrested for "impeding an investigation" after following the vehicle from a distance the observer says exceeded 25 feet. The observer, part of a local group monitoring immigration enforcement in the Upper Florida Keys, referenced the recent fatal shooting of a woman by a CBP officer in Minneapolis during the exchange. Key Largo was previously the site of a December Border Patrol stop in which officers pulled a U.S. citizen from her car, and the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Florida, ruled in 2000 that recording police is protected First Amendment activity.

ICE states that video footage from Broadview Detention Center was lost in a system crash on October 31, one day after the facility was sued on October 30 for allegedly abusing detainees. Two weeks of surveillance footage was reportedly destroyed. Government lawyers stated they lack resources to preserve surveillance footage.

Federal immigration agents conducted enforcement operations at multiple locations in Long Beach on November 20, 2025, including at Polly's Pies restaurant, where agents chased a gardener inside and tackled him in front of two Long Beach Police Department officers who were eating there. Police said officers recognized the operation as federal immigration enforcement and did not intervene; restaurant staff who knew the man contacted his family, and a local business improvement district board member retrieved the keys to his work truck for them. Agents also arrested three people outside Cherry Donuts and were reported at four additional locations, including a church and intersections along Pacific Coast Highway, throughout the morning.

A British woman was arrested by ICE while holding her 5-month-old baby at her green card interview in San Diego on November 20, 2025. She spent five days in custody before being released with her green card approved on November 25. Multiple immigration attorneys noted that federal law provides exceptions for direct relatives of U.S. citizens undergoing adjustment of status.

ICE conducted operations at six locations in Long Beach on November 20, 2025, detaining at least nine people. One detention involved a gardener who was chased and attacked inside Polly's Pies restaurant in front of customers and dining police officers. Local elected officials and community organizations issued criticism regarding ICE's enforcement tactics.

A 41-year-old undocumented immigrant and stepfather of a 22-year-old Army National Guard member was detained by ICE agents around 6:30 a.m. Tuesday while walking to work in Port Richmond, Staten Island. The stepfather, who immigrated from Mexico in the early 2000s and has no criminal record, is now being held in an ICE detention facility. The National Guard member's sister, a JROTC member, contacted the Staten Island nonprofit La Colmena after learning of the detention, and the organization held a press conference on the family's behalf. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul publicly responded to the case, calling for the Trump administration to address it.

Gladys Tentes-Pitiur, an Indigenous Shuar woman from Ecuador, was detained by ICE for 135 days at Richwood Correctional Center in Louisiana after being arrested outside a courthouse in New Haven on July 7, 2025. She had fled Ecuador due to persecution and traveled through seven countries with her two young sons, surviving cartel kidnapping in Mexico before arriving in New Haven in November 2023. After an immigration judge granted her asylum on October 17, 2025, citing violence she had fled since age 15, she was released on November 19 and reunited with her sons, ages 6 and 7, outside their Fair Haven school the day before Thanksgiving. Her lawyer, Brenda Wylie, said the case was the only successful asylum grant her office achieved in 2025, and Tentes-Pitiur recalled her younger son initially refusing to believe she would not be taken away again.

Nine people were detained by U.S. Border Patrol agents during an immigration enforcement sweep in the Raleigh area on November 19, 2025, and held overnight at New Hanover County jail in Castle Hayne. The nine detainees, consisting of one woman and eight men ranging in age from 24 to 59, were transferred to an undisclosed location on November 20, 2025. ICE officials did not disclose to jail staff the reasons for the detentions or the destination of the detainees. This operation was part of a broader U.S. Border Patrol enforcement surge that began in Charlotte over the weekend, which had resulted in more than 250 arrests by the time of this article.