Human Impact Project

ICE detained Rafael Zaga Tawil, a Mexican businessman, at Glades County Detention Center in Florida on April 13, 2026. Mexican authorities are seeking him in connection with a $294 million housing fraud scheme involving the National Workers' Housing Fund Institute (Infonavit), along with allegations of organized crime and money laundering. The fraud involved contracts signed in 2014 with the private company Telra Realty that were terminated in 2017, after which the institute authorized an illegal indemnity payment of over 5 billion pesos. Mexican prosecutors may request his extradition for prosecution.

Alexandre Ramagem, 53, former head of Brazilian intelligence, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on April 14, 2026, following his flight from Brazil. Ramagem was convicted in September 2024 for his role in a coup conspiracy with former President Jair Bolsonaro, including charges of armed criminal association, attempted coup d'état, and attempted violent abolition of the rule of law, and was sentenced to 16 years in prison. He had entered the United States using a diplomatic passport and was living in exile in Florida when taken into custody following a traffic stop. Brazilian authorities formally requested his extradition in December 2024, and the arrest resulted from collaboration between U.S. and Brazilian law enforcement. He reportedly has a pending asylum request under review.

ProPublica and FRONTLINE investigated more than 300 arrests of protesters and bystanders during Trump administration immigration enforcement sweeps in Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Charlotte. Over one-third of cases were dismissed, acquitted at trial, or never prosecuted. Video evidence and other documentation repeatedly contradicted officer statements, and prosecutors struggled to substantiate charges such as assaulting federal officers or interfering with law enforcement. Federal agents, largely inexperienced in crowd control, made widespread arrests that ultimately failed legal scrutiny.

Gilbert, an Immokalee high school graduate, was unlawfully detained in LaBelle, Florida. Community members are organizing a support action scheduled for Friday at 8:20 AM.

Yelitza Perez, a 29-year-old Venezuelan mother of two, spent weeks attempting to voluntarily return to Venezuela through the CBP Home app following her husband's deportation. She initially registered for voluntary departure but faced multiple obstacles, including lack of required Venezuelan travel documentation and airline verification issues. After being denied boarding at Miami International Airport in early April, she obtained a salvoconducto (safe pass) from Venezuelan authorities. Faith-based organizations including Hermanos de la Calle and Discerning Deacons provided shelter and assistance during her stay. Perez and her daughters successfully departed for Venezuela in mid-April after obtaining the required travel documentation.

On April 4, 2026, ICE agents arrested 13 undocumented individuals from Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan at a PennDOT driver's license center in Kittanning, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania. A website error had directed individuals seeking commercial driver's license renewals to the facility, resulting in an unusually large crowd of over 100 people. East Franklin Police received reports of the gathering and contacted ICE. During the operation, multiple people fled the scene, some abandoning vehicles and running through residential yards to evade agents. One person resisted arrest and allegedly assaulted a law enforcement officer. PennDOT stated it follows federal law and uses the SAVE database to verify legal presence for license applicants.

A Venezuelan citizen who entered the U.S. without inspection in September 2023 and was released on recognizance was arrested by ICE in Lakeville, Minnesota on April 13, 2026. He challenged his mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2) through a habeas corpus petition, arguing he should be eligible for bond under § 1226(a). The court denied his petition, ruling that under Eighth Circuit precedent, noncitizens present in the U.S. who have not been admitted are necessarily "seeking admission" and subject to mandatory detention.

A 56-year-old Colombian citizen who had been granted withholding of removal was detained without a warrant by ICE officers in Baltimore on March 31, 2026, when he reported for a scheduled check-in. He had been complying with supervised release and had a home visit scheduled for April 1, but ICE instructed him to report in-person on March 31 instead. The court granted his temporary restraining order motion and ordered his immediate release, finding ICE violated his due process rights. A second man was placed in removal proceedings in August 2023 and charged with inadmissibility for entering the United States without inspection. He was released from immigration custody on an Order of Recognizance but was subsequently arrested by immigration authorities and is currently detained at the Adelanto ICE Detention Facility. The court granted his temporary restraining order requiring an individualized bond hearing within seven days.

Yousef Azizi, an Iranian researcher, journalist, and Virginia Tech PhD candidate who lived in the U.S. for 13 years with valid legal status, was arrested in a pre-dawn operation outside his Maryland home on April 13 shortly after dropping his children off at school, with more than ten FBI vehicles involved and agents pointing rifles at him before he was taken to a detention center in Baltimore. During three months in custody, interrogators repeatedly questioned him over an unsubstantiated claim that he had belonged to the Student Basij Organization during his first master's degree, invoking the U.S. government's 2019 terrorist designation of the IRGC, though he said authorities never presented evidence despite several court hearings. He was then shackled and transferred over six days from Maryland to Louisiana, Arizona, and California, including two nights in a freezing Arizona facility with 30 others that he said caused serious health deterioration, a process he attributed partly to the business practices of private detention contractors; a judge denied bond despite 250 pages of support letters from professors at the University of Michigan, Harvard, Virginia Tech, and other institutions. Azizi, a regular media commentator critical of U.S. and Israeli foreign policy, said an FBI agent twice threatened his wife, and he ultimately took a voluntary return to Iran, where he hopes to defend his dissertation remotely.

Yousof Azizi, a 40-year-old Iranian PhD candidate at Virginia Tech, was detained by Homeland Security Investigations agents outside his Germantown, Maryland home on April 13 and transferred to an immigration detention facility in Arizona. His wife denies DHS allegations that he lied on his student visa application about membership in Iran's Student Basij Organization and claims his visa status issue was a pretext, asserting he was speaking publicly about U.S.-Iran relations based on his academic research.

An immigration attorney reports that approximately 80% of his clients granted bond by a judge are held for days beyond their legal release date by ICE. The case of Deonicio Castillo, a Colorado resident detained in January 2026, exemplifies the pattern—he was held six days after a judge granted his $2,500 bond. The attorney argues the delays violate constitutional rights and represent a departure from prior practice where bond releases typically occurred within hours.

Several ICE detainees were hospitalized after suffering heat-related illnesses while being transported by bus in Oklahoma on April 13, 2026. The transport bus, which was carrying detainees to an ICE facility in Watonga, stopped in Canadian County to provide medical assistance. Multiple detainees required hospital treatment for heat-related conditions.

A father named Adith was detained by ICE outside his workplace. He is a working man who provides for five children. His family is seeking financial assistance to bring him home, as the legal process to do so is expensive.

Rev. Yeison Cortes Vasquez, a 46-year-old evangelical pastor at The Gathering Place Church in Elizabeth, New Jersey, was detained by ICE on March 20, 2026, while working a food delivery job. ICE cited an overstayed tourist visa from Colombia that expired in 2016, though church members stated Vasquez had an active asylum case and was following legal processes. During his approximately three-week detention at Delaney Hall in Newark, church leaders reported he was denied access to a Bible for at least a week; DHS denied these allegations and stated detainees may request religious items. While in custody, Vasquez ministered to other detainees. Members of Congress visited the facility and raised concerns about detention conditions. Vasquez was released on bond with GPS monitoring while awaiting removal proceedings. The National Latino Evangelical Coalition confirmed he has no criminal record.

A 23-year-old Honduran man granted legal status and work authorization under a federal court settlement for families separated by the Trump administration's zero tolerance policy was arrested by ICE in October 2025 after Louisiana wildlife officers reported him for target shooting in a protected area. Despite possessing valid immigration documents and parole status, he was detained for over five months and issued a deportation order on January 6, 2026. At least 25 other people with similar legal protections have been detained or deported by ICE in recent months. The government has also imposed new $1,000-per-person fees and canceled contracts with legal service providers, violating the terms of the federal settlement agreement. The ACLU filed a motion for his release on April 1, 2026.

Maryam Tahmasebi, a psychology and statistics professor at Los Angeles Pierce College, and her son have been detained at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center since April 9, 2024. Her husband, Eissa Hashemi, a professor at The Chicago School's Business Psychology department, was taken to the South Texas Detention Center in Pearsall, Texas. All three are legal permanent residents with valid green cards and no criminal record. The Trump administration is seeking to revoke their green cards and deport them based on Hashemi's mother's alleged role as a translator during the 1979 U.S. Embassy hostage crisis in Tehran—an event that occurred before Hashemi was born. According to their lawyer, Curtis Morrison, there are no specific allegations against the three individuals other than their familial relationship. Friends and colleagues describe Tahmasebi as highly intelligent and dedicated to her work as an educator, and Hashemi as kind and joyous. The family is allowed to speak for only 10 minutes every two weeks under supervision, and Tahmasebi reports their physical and mental health have deteriorated significantly. A federal judge temporarily barred the government from deporting the family after they filed petitions challenging the legality of their detention.

Aled Damien Carbonell-Betancourt, a 27-year-old Cuban national, was found dead on April 12, 2026, hanging from a bedsheet in his cell at Miami Federal Detention Center. He had entered the United States legally in October 2024 under parole after being cited by CBP as an undocumented immigrant. In November 2025, he was arrested in Miami-Dade County on charges of resisting an officer with violence; prosecutors later abandoned these charges. He was transferred to ICE custody on February 11, 2026, and held under a deportation order. He had been diagnosed with anxiety and prescribed medication in March 2026 but reportedly denied suicidal ideation. His death was investigated by ICE as an apparent suicide and was reported as one of at least nine to ten suicides among men in ICE custody since Trump returned to office in January 2025, and the second reported suicide in Florida ICE custody within a month.

Jose Luis Ferrer-Valdez, also known in court records as Jose David Luis Paraiso, is a father of two children ages 13 and 8 who has lived in the United States since he was 14 and holds Special Immigrant Juvenile Status with an approved I-360 petition. He entered the U.S. in May 2023, was released on parole during removal proceedings, and had those proceedings terminated by an immigration judge in February 2025. In January 2026 he was detained by ICE while riding his bicycle in Garden Grove, California, and held at the Adelanto Detention Facility, with ICE alleging he was inadmissible for entering without inspection despite his approved immigration status. After criminal charges against him were later dropped, he was transferred from local law enforcement custody into ICE custody in April 2026 and redetained without a warrant, notice, or bond hearing. His family and community members organized a fundraiser for his legal expenses, and activists visited him in detention. He filed a habeas corpus petition, and a federal court granted it, first ordering an individualized bond hearing and then ordering his immediate release while barring the government from redetaining him without notice and a hearing.

Andriy Shepitsen, a 46-year-old Ukrainian man, has been in ICE custody since December 2025, held first at the Everglades facility, then Glades County Detention Center, and finally Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami. Despite being prescribed medications for severe bipolar disorder, major depression, and ADHD, he was denied these drugs for months, prompting a 60-day hunger strike that left him unable to walk, in hypotensive shock, and hospitalized; his attorneys allege ICE at one point attempted to force-feed him. Sanctuary of the South, Amnesty International USA, and the ACLU of Florida have filed a formal complaint with ICE and DHS demanding emergency medical intervention, while a DHS spokesperson denied the allegations, saying Shepitsen refused his medications. Advocates say his life remains at risk even after the hunger strike ended.

The Trump administration revoked the lawful permanent resident status of several Iranian nationals and detained them via ICE enforcement actions in Los Angeles starting in early April 2026. Detainees included Seyed Eissa Hashemi, his wife Maryam Tahmasebi, their son Seyed Mobin Hashemi, Hamideh Soleimani Afshar, her daughter Sarinasadat Hosseiny, and Dr. Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani, a researcher removed from her position at Emory University. The Hashemi family were relatives of Masoumeh Ebtekar, who served as spokeswoman during the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover in Tehran. Soleimani Afshar and her daughter were claimed to be relatives of slain Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, though both women and Soleimani's family denied any familial connection. Soleimani Afshar, who suffers from a severe blood disorder, was denied medical treatment while detained. Secretary Marco Rubio announced the coordinated enforcement action, stating the individuals should not have been permitted lawful permanent resident status given their connections to the Iranian government.