Human Impact Project

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.

A 23-year-old woman detained at a Border Patrol checkpoint was charged with assaulting a federal officer but the charge was dismissed in August after body-camera video revealed agents used a Taser on her while she was turning away to enter a holding cell. Court documents showed agents had found no evidence of criminal activity before the incident and that one falsely told her about deleted evidence on her phone. Nearly half of 22 assault-on-officer cases filed in San Diego during Trump's second term were later dismissed.

Fatima Issela Velasquez-Antonio, 23, of Wendell, North Carolina, was detained by federal agents during a U.S. Border Patrol immigration enforcement sweep on November 19, 2025. Velasquez-Antonio came to the United States at age 14 from Honduras after her father was killed by a gang and her mother died of cancer; she had no criminal record beyond two traffic violations, had graduated high school, and recently purchased a home in Wendell with her boyfriend with plans to start a family. She was arrested near her workplace at an HVAC business and transferred to New Hanover County jail before being moved to an undisclosed location on November 20, 2025. Her family has received no information about her whereabouts or what will happen to her next. The detention occurred as part of a broader U.S. Border Patrol operation in the Triangle area that detained nine people total.

On November 18, a 23-year-old asylum seeker named Fatima Issela Velasquez-Antonio, a Wendell resident, was detained by U.S. Border Patrol agents at a construction site in Cary, North Carolina; video taken by a co-worker shows agents handcuffing her and loading her into a van. She was held overnight at the New Hanover County jail before being transferred to Stewart Detention Center in Georgia for over a month. A federal immigration judge ordered her release in late December, ruling that her detention violated a juvenile-arrival settlement agreement since she had entered the United States from Honduras unaccompanied at age 14, after her father was killed by a gang, and held a valid work permit. The detention was part of Operation Charlotte's Web, a federal enforcement operation that resulted in at least 370 arrests in North Carolina.

Vicente Ventura Aguilar has been missing for over 45 days after suffering a medical emergency while in ICE custody in South Los Angeles. He and a friend were taken by masked agents, and his friend, who was deported to Mexico, last saw him fainting in ICE custody. Despite searches of hospitals, morgues, and government agencies, and DHS reporting no records of him, his whereabouts remain unknown.

Federal immigration agents arrested a man in a parking lot at Eastway Crossing shopping center in Charlotte while he was documenting their activities. The man, Joshua Long, was released from an FBI office six hours later. DHS claimed he was arrested for vehicular assault against a federal agent, which Long disputed.

Melissa Tran, a Maryland mother who came to the U.S. from Vietnam in the 1990s as a refugee with a Green Card, was deported to Vietnam after being detained by ICE in May. Though a judge ordered her release in October, she still faced deportation due to a 2003 removal order stemming from a 2001 conviction for stealing checks as a teenager. Vietnam had previously refused to accept her, allowing her to remain in the U.S. for over 20 years while completing regular immigration check-ins, until her detention during a check-in in Baltimore.

Prosecutors dismissed charges without prejudice against 54-year-old John Bennett, an assistant principal at Kempsville High School in Virginia Beach, and his 59-year-old brother Mark Bennett. The two men had been arrested in November 2025 for allegedly threatening violence against local police and ICE agents.

Two U.S. citizens, Aliya Rahman and Marimar Martinez, testified before Congress about their experiences being apprehended by ICE. Rahman, who is disabled, was forcibly removed from her car while en route to a medical appointment in Minneapolis and denied medical care in detention. Martinez was shot five times by ICE agents in Chicago while attempting to warn neighbors about ICE presence in the area.

A man appeared in court in Lebanon, Tennessee for a routine traffic violation when ICE agents in plain clothes detained him without showing identification. His U.S. citizen daughter intervened and was injured in the process. The man was taken away in a white van, and his family reports lacking clear answers about his whereabouts or status. Five people were detained by ICE after appearing in Robertson County General Sessions Court on November 19 to answer summons for misdemeanor traffic violations. All five had pleaded guilty to traffic offenses and paid their fines before being escorted to a private room and subsequently removed from the courthouse in handcuffs and leg shackles by masked ICE agents. The detainees, including Yanim Lopez and Aurora Leao, both originally from Mexico, were transferred to detention facilities in Knoxville and later Louisiana. ICE arrested 6,251 people in Tennessee between January 20 and October 15, 2025, with arrest rates rising throughout the year. Attorneys report that immigrants following legal requirements—including routine ICE check-ins—are now being detained and deported, a shift from previous practice. The article documents cases where immigrants with no criminal records are detained at check-ins, judges in some counties are contacting ICE, and immigration holds prevent bonded release, leaving immigrants in jail for months before court appearances.

An Australian woman and wife of a Navy veteran was arrested by ICE agents during her green card interview on November 18, 2025, in the same enforcement operation as other military spouses. She was detained for eight days before an immigration judge ordered her release on bond on November 26, 2025. She has no criminal history and remains eligible to pursue her green card through her U.S. citizen spouse. Her attorney noted this was the first arrest of this type at green card interviews in over 12 years of practice.

A native of India who entered the U.S. without inspection in 2004 was re-detained by ICE at a New York office during a scheduled check-in on November 18, 2025. He had been previously detained, placed in removal proceedings, and released, with an asylum application pending since 2024. The court ordered respondents to provide him with a bond hearing within seven days or release him.

Community organizers and immigration attorneys report an uptick in detainments at the Dallas ICE Field Office during routine check-in appointments. Multiple immigrants, including those with pending asylum cases and proper documentation, have been detained during check-in appointments. The office has become one of the busiest in the country, averaging about 100 arrests per day, and reporting indicates most of those arrested in 2025 did not have criminal convictions. One case highlighted by the Dallas Morning News involved an asylum seeker from El Salvador with no criminal record who was arrested at a scheduled appointment in October 2025 and transferred to a detention center in Georgia.

Two U.S. citizen women were arrested by Border Patrol agents in Charlotte after allegedly honking their horn to alert others of agents' presence in the area during Operation Charlotte Web. An agent used an assault rifle to break the driver's window, and both women were handcuffed with zip ties and removed from the vehicle. They were taken to an FBI building and released later that day, charged with 18 USC 111 for allegedly impeding a federal officer.

Chanidaphon Sopimpa, a Thai national and wife of retired Marine Staff Sergeant Samuel Shasteen, was arrested by ICE agents during her final green card interview on November 18, 2025, and detained at Otay Mesa Detention Center. Sopimpa had overstayed her visa but the couple had been pursuing her green card through marriage to a U.S. citizen spouse, which includes a federal law exception for such cases. ICE stated the arrests were for visa overstays, but immigration attorneys note this enforcement action at green card interviews is unprecedented in recent history. Sopimpa has no criminal history and is scheduled for a bond hearing.

An NYPD sergeant named Atickul Islam was charged with posing as a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field director and ordering a victim and their family to report to an ICE facility by April 15. Islam pleaded not guilty to personation of a federal officer and was released on an unsecured $25,000 bond. The NYPD suspended him without pay and seized his badge and service weapon.