Human Impact Project

A family facing ICE enforcement operations decided to self-deport but were unable to bring their 6-year-old German Shepherd, Draco, on their flight due to airline size restrictions. The family surrendered the dog they had raised for over five years to the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control. Pet surrenders from families affected by recent immigration enforcement operations have occurred in Southern California.

Lewelyn Dixon, a lab technician at UW Medicine who arrived from the Philippines at age 14 and held a green card for more than 50 years, was detained by Customs and Border Protection at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Feb. 28, 2025, while returning from a family trip to the Philippines. Her attorney said the detention stemmed from a 2001 nonviolent embezzlement conviction for which she had already served her sentence and paid restitution, though it had never before affected her travel or green card renewals. She spent nearly three months at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, where she described conditions as 'horrific' and 'super crowded' and spent time helping other detainees and forming friendships, including with an Afghan woman who gave her a beaded bracelet. Immigration Judge Tammy Fitting ruled on May 29, 2025 that Dixon should not be deported, citing her decades as a lawful permanent resident, community ties, and arrival as a child. Family, coworkers, and union supporters from SEIU Local 925 rallied outside the detention center and celebrated her release. About a month later, Dixon applied for U.S. citizenship, passed her interview in October, and took the Oath of Allegiance on July 20. Her niece, Donna Cristobal, said, 'I'm relieved now that she's documented and doesn't have to go through this again... It was a really bad time for us, the whole family.'

More than 50 community organizers and residents rallied outside the Juanita Kidd Stout Center for Criminal Justice in Philadelphia after ICE agents arrested a man leaving a court hearing on Wednesday. A video recorded by a Juntos ICE Watch volunteer shows plainclothes ICE agents, working alongside Philadelphia police, tackle the man as he exited the courthouse, with agents never identifying themselves or presenting a warrant despite onlookers' requests. Philadelphia police said their cooperation followed a 2016 executive order from former Mayor Jim Kenney permitting cooperation with ICE only under a judicial warrant, though it remains unclear if one existed in this case. Rally organizers, including Juntos director Erika Guadalupe Nunez, said the police involvement violated the city's sanctuary city status.

Derlis Snaider Chusin Toaquiza, a 19-year-old 11th grader from Ecuador at Grover Cleveland High School in Queens, was detained by ICE on June 4, 2025, during a scheduled immigration court hearing. He was initially held at 26 Federal Plaza in New York City in severely overcrowded conditions—confined in a room so crowded he could not lie down and forced to sleep sitting up with approximately two dozen other people. Over two days of detention at that facility, he was given only two meals total. He was then moved to a gymnasium inside the facility that was equally overcrowded with no beds, blankets, or access to basic necessities. After six weeks in a Texas detention facility, the Envision Freedom Fund posted his $20,000 bond, and he was released on July 18, 2025, to reunite with his family.

Leonardo José Colmenares Solórzano, a 31-year-old former youth soccer coach from Venezuela, was detained by CBP agents at a scheduled border appointment in October 2024 after they photographed his tattoos. Internal DHS data showed he had no criminal history and no U.S. or foreign convictions or charges. He was deported to CECOT prison in El Salvador on March 15, 2025, under the Alien Enemies Act as part of a group of 238 Venezuelan deportees labeled as terrorists and gang members despite DHS data showing most had no U.S. criminal convictions. While incarcerated, Colmenares reported being tortured—guards stomped on his hands, poured filthy water in his ears, and threatened beatings. He was returned to Venezuela on July 18, 2025, as part of a prisoner swap.

In mid-July, ICE agents conducted raids in Passaic, New Jersey, arresting dozens of residents, including Guatemalan national José Efraín Chajón Raxón, who was taken to the Delaney Hall detention facility. He died soon after suffering a medical emergency, becoming the second person to die connected to the facility within a month. The Department of Homeland Security says he was released from custody on July 22 and died weeks later, but reporting from Status Coup and ABC News, along with accounts from immigrant-rights organizers, indicates he was released almost immediately after being detained and died shortly afterward. New Jersey Congressman Rob Menendez has said ICE can avoid reporting a detainee's death if the person is released from custody beforehand. At least 75 people, including one U.S. citizen, were arrested by ICE in Passaic that month, with arrests spiking 4,200% compared to the previous year.

More than 230 Venezuelan men held in U.S. immigration custody were expelled to El Salvador in March 2025 under the Trump administration's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act and detained for months in the CECOT maximum-security prison, where they allege torture. A proposed class-action lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, led by plaintiffs Andry Omar Blanco Bonilla, Wild Yahare Chirinos Romero and Jerce Egbunik Reyes Barrios, accuses aviation companies CSI Aviation and GlobalX of civil rights violations, false imprisonment and negligence for carrying out the flights despite a federal judge's order to halt or return them. The complaint alleges passengers were told they were being returned to Venezuela but instead were taken to El Salvador and held incommunicado for months while subjected to severe abuse. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who also presided over earlier litigation involving the same deportation flights.

U.S. Border Patrol agents conducted an enforcement operation at a Home Depot parking lot in south Sacramento on July 17, detaining 11 undocumented immigrants and a U.S. citizen identified as Jose Castillo. Castillo, an immigration watch volunteer documenting the operation, was detained after agents alleged he damaged a vehicle tire during a brief chase in the parking lot; he was later released. A total of 11 people were arrested during the raid, which Border Patrol stated was a message that the federal government can enforce immigration law anywhere in California.

Jose Manuel Castillo Jr., a U.S. citizen and volunteer with immigrant advocacy group NorCal Resist, was charged with depredation of government property after allegedly puncturing a Border Patrol vehicle tire during an ICE raid at a Home Depot on July 17. According to the DOJ, Castillo was seen walking toward a Border Patrol SUV and agents heard a pop and hissing noise before finding the tire slashed; a pocketknife found on him matched the hole's width. Castillo's attorney and the advocacy group dispute the charges, claiming he was merely documenting arrests and was not obstructing operations.

An 18-year-old Key West High School senior and wrestler was detained by immigration agents on December 2 while driving his mother's car to school and was held at the Everglades detention facility before being deported to Honduras within a week. He is now staying with his grandparents near San Pedro Sula, a place he left with his mother at age 6, and says he hopes to return to the life they built together. His mother says he had been in the process of adjusting his legal status through a petition filed by her husband, a U.S. citizen, and friends and community members have raised funds to pay for an attorney to review his case.

Zia S., 35, an Afghan immigrant and father of five who served as a translator for U.S. troops for five years, was detained by ICE agents in July outside a USCIS office in East Hartford while submitting biometric information for his green card application. He was released from ICE custody on Oct. 14 and reunited with his family in Connecticut, according to U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal's office. Zia, his wife, and children fled Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover in 2021, fearing retribution for his work with U.S. forces, and arrived legally in the U.S. in October 2024 on humanitarian parole with approved Special Immigrant Visa applications. Blumenthal said he will continue pushing for Zia to secure a clear pathway to permanent legal status for himself and his family.

Juana McIntosh, a Guatemalan national and spouse of a U.S. Air Force member, was detained by ICE during a green card interview appointment at a USCIS office in Atlanta while her husband was deployed overseas. She had been granted Parole in Place as a military spouse and was in the process of adjusting her status when she was taken into custody based on a previous removal order from 2012.

Approximately 10 days after the South Sudan deportation, five migrants from Jamaica, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, and Yemen were deported to Eswatini (formerly Swaziland). The deportees were sent to Matsapha Correctional Center, the country's main maximum-security prison. Jamaican national Orville Etoria was able to return to his country at the end of September, but four others remain detained without charge and without permission to receive visitors. According to lawyers, the U.S.-Eswatini agreement provided for the transfer of 160 deportees in exchange for $5.1 million. One detainee, Cuban national Roberto Mosquera, remains imprisoned in the country where he never committed a crime and has no family or friends.

ICE confirmed an active investigation at Trail King Industries, a trailer manufacturer employing about 500 people at its Mitchell headquarters and 770 total across plants in Mitchell, Yankton, and West Fargo, North Dakota. Tips surfaced about agents being seen at the facility. The company's VP of Human Resources declined to comment.

ICE raided four Colt Grill restaurant locations in Yavapai County, Arizona in mid-July 2025, detaining 28 undocumented workers on immigration violations. Restaurant owners Robert and Brenda Clouston and two undocumented employees, Luis Pedro Rogel-Jaimes and Iris Romero-Molina, were accused by federal prosecutors of smuggling undocumented workers from Mexico, paying below minimum wage, withholding overtime compensation, and creating a fake cleaning business to conceal payments. The raids resulted in approximately 200 job losses and closure of two locations; the owners' trial was scheduled for June 2, 2026 in federal court in Phoenix.

On June 11, a former president of the Spokane City Council sent out an alert over social media. Two men, in the county legally and seeking asylum, had reported for an appearance in immigration court there. They were then detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, commonly known as ICE, at a Department of Homeland Security office in Spokane. The former council member, Ben Stuckart, urged followers to disrupt that enforcement. Among those responding to the call that day was Bajun Mavalwalla II, a Petaluma native and military veteran who had relocated to Washington. The resulting demonstration became confrontational. Protesters blocked an ICE bus as the agency attempted to transport the two detainees to Tacoma for immigration hearings, deflating the vehicle’s tires. Several people were arrested. Mavalwalla was not one of them. But a month later, on July 15, he got a knock at the door of his Spokane home at 6 a.m. Ten FBI agents were on hand to take him into custody.

A 23-year-old woman who grew up in Cottonwood, Arizona since she was 4 months old, speaks English fluently, and graduated from Mingus Union High School was undocumented and ineligible for DACA after President Trump attempted to end the program during his first term; she worked two jobs to support herself and her family. On July 15, 2025, ICE raided Colt Grill restaurant where she worked, part of a broader raid on four Colt Grill locations in Yavapai County; federal prosecutors have indicted owners Robert and Brenda Clouston and two undocumented employees, accusing them of smuggling workers from Mexico and running a fake cleaning-company scheme to exploit them. During the raid, ICE officers used pepper spray to force workers out of hiding; she was questioned, arrested, and detained for months at multiple facilities including the Florence ICE processing center and Eloy Detention Center, where she reported harsh conditions including overcrowding, extreme cold, and an untreated rash. She was ultimately deported to Mexico, separated from her three U.S. citizen brothers and her family in the United States.

Mahdi Khanbabazadeh, a 38-year-old Iranian chiropractor, was detained by ICE on July 15, 2025, while dropping his child off at Guidepost Montessori School in Beaverton, Oregon. Video footage shows Khanbabazadeh pleading with ICE agents to allow his child to exit the car before his arrest. After he stopped cooperating, ICE officers broke his car window to take him into custody. Khanbabazadeh entered the U.S. on a student visa; ICE claims he overstayed it, while his family states he is married to a U.S. citizen and has already applied and interviewed for a green card. He is currently held at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington. His detention occurred as part of a broader surge in ICE arrests of Iranian immigrants under the Trump administration.

On July 15, 2025, federal agents raided four Colt Grill BBQ and Spirits restaurants in Yavapai County, Arizona, and a location in Foley, Alabama, arresting 28 undocumented workers on immigration violations. Restaurant owners Robert and Brenda Clouston, both 61, were arrested along with two undocumented immigrants, Luis Pedro Rogel-Jaimes, 33, and Iris Romero-Molina, 29. According to a May 27 federal indictment, the four defendants conspired to transport and harbor undocumented workers from Mexico, operating a fake cleaning business as a staffing front to conceal payments. The workers were paid below minimum wage without overtime compensation, and the defendants avoided proper employment taxes. Approximately 200 employees lost their jobs when the restaurants closed. The investigation spanned three years.

Derlis Snaider Chusin Toaquiza, a 19-year-old Ecuadorian asylum-seeker and 11th grader at Grover Cleveland High School in Queens, was detained by ICE on June 4 at a scheduled immigration court appearance in Texas. An immigration judge granted him release on bond, and the Envision Freedom Fund posted a $20,000 bond to secure his release. Chusin reunited with his family on Friday after a month in detention, with his legal team arguing that ICE violated his due process rights. His asylum case remains pending.