Human Impact Project

A short time after the raid on an Elgin home, ICE agents stopped a driver on Route 31 a few blocks away and took him into custody. This stop was one of several ICE detentions made in the Chicagoland area on September 16, 2025, as part of DHS Operation "Midway Blitz," which targeted Illinois and Lake County, Indiana.

On the morning of September 16, 2025, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem led a military-style raid on an Elgin home, with camouflage-uniformed agents and a helicopter overhead breaking down both the front and back doors around 5:30-5:50 a.m. Seven people were taken into custody, but two of them were U.S. citizens who were released after producing driver's licenses; one said he had been on his way to work when detained and did not know why the others were held. DHS said the operation executed a felony arrest warrant, resulting in the arrest of the target and four others, and claimed the two citizens were only briefly held for safety reasons rather than arrested. Noem and DHS characterized the detainees as having offenses including DUI, felony stalking and assault, claims disputed by community members.

Roberto Lacoss, a former lawful permanent resident from the Philippines, was arrested by ICE in Pearl, Mississippi on September 16, 2025, following a criminal conviction for statutory rape. After being ordered removed by an immigration judge, Lacoss complied with the deportation order and departed the United States for the Philippines, with ICE deportation officers present to confirm his departure.

A 5-year-old U.S. citizen girl with autism was surrounded by ICE agents outside her family's home in Leominster, Massachusetts, while agents attempted to arrest her father, Edwards Hip Mejia, a Guatemalan national who had lived in the U.S. for more than two decades. Video showed the girl sitting in the driveway near an SUV as agents asked her father, who had fled into the house, to come outside. Her family and attorney said ICE used the child to pressure Hip Mejia into surrendering, while DHS said he abandoned his daughter in a car while fleeing agents after a traffic stop. Local police responded, and the girl was taken to a police station before being reunited with her grandmother after about three hours. Hip Mejia was detained by ICE two days later and is currently held at a detention center in Plymouth; his attorney said prior domestic-abuse charges cited by DHS had been dismissed, and a judge later granted him bond.

A single father of six U.S. citizen children applied for a special visa but was deported by ICE. The case involved family ties and legal efforts to prevent deportation.

Cristina Osornio, a legal permanent resident and mother of six who has lived in the U.S. since infancy, was stopped by police in Rogers on September 15, 2025, for driving without insurance and with a suspended license. She was arrested on a warrant for missing a court appearance in a misdemeanor domestic violence case and held at Benton County Jail on an ICE hold for four days before being released without explanation. Osornio said the detention was "very scary" and exacerbated her health conditions. Her husband, Edwin Sanchez-Mendoza, was deported to Mexico after a misdemeanor arrest months earlier, leaving the family without their primary breadwinner and forcing them to lose their home.

The government of Ghana announced that 14 West Africans (13 Nigerians and 1 Gambian) deported from the US had been sent on to their home countries, prompting a lawsuit from US lawyers alleging the deportations violated immigration protections and that Ghana was used as a third country to bypass US law. Reuters later found that more than 30 third-country nationals were deported to Ghana, including at least 22 who had court-ordered protection against removal to their home countries, with lawyers saying none had a chance to raise legal objections before being sent back. One deportee, Rabbiatu Kuyateh, who had been granted protection from deportation to Sierra Leone over fears of torture tied to her father's political ties, was filmed being forcibly dragged onto a van in Ghana before being returned to Sierra Leone. Reuters also reported that Equatorial Guinea sent home at least three US deportees who had similar US protections, a previously unreported practice now the subject of complaints to the UN human rights office.

ICE agents detained at least two Venezuelan men in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood on Monday, including one pulled from his car at 24th and Albany despite claims of legal status. Witnesses say agents hit the car before the man exited, then left his wife and two small children crying in the intersection without providing a warrant or information about his location. The Little Village Community Council, which had distributed whistles during Sunday's Mexican Independence Day parade to alert neighbors of ICE presence, is now working to secure legal representation as detentions increase and fear spreads through the community.

Immigration agents moved a car off the road after breaking its windows and detaining someone on the southwest side. The car was returned to family. Agents abandoned several other vehicles during arrests around Chicago.

Federal immigration agents conducted a raid at a carwash in California. A social media post documented the incident, describing agents detaining workers at the location.

ICE agents raided the Bixby Knolls Car Wash in Long Beach on Saturday, detaining seven workers (four women and three men). The workers, from Honduras, El Salvador, and Mexico, had various forms of legal status according to the manager, but agents allegedly confiscated or dismissed their immigration documents. The detained workers have been processed at facilities in Santa Ana, Adelanto, and Los Angeles.

Silverio Villegas González, an undocumented father of two from Michoacán, Mexico, was fatally shot by an ICE agent during a traffic stop in Franklin Park, Illinois, on Sept. 12, 2025, after an earlier incident in which agents pepper-sprayed him and his 1-year-old daughter at a Cicero Sam's Club. DHS said the agent fired after Villegas González resisted arrest and dragged an agent with his car, though body-camera footage showed the agent describing his injuries as minor, and his attorney noted he had no criminal record. A year later, the FBI has released no information about its investigation into the shooting, and Villegas González's family, working with lawyers and the Mexican Consulate, is pursuing a wrongful death claim against the federal government and seeking custody of his children, who are currently in foster care. Community members have maintained a vigil and memorial at the site since his death.

Seven people were arrested during a U.S. Border Patrol immigration enforcement operation at Bixby Knolls Car Wash in Long Beach on Saturday. The individuals arrested were from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico. About 10 unmarked cars blocked the car wash exit during the raid, which resulted in the arrest of several employees. The chief of the Glassport Borough Police Department reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement made 17 arrests in the borough over a two-week period. Seven workers at Bixby Knoll's Car Wash in Long Beach, California were detained by federal immigration agents on September 13, 2025. During the raid, a woman being placed into a federal vehicle appeared to faint and collapse while in custody. The incident occurred as masked federal agents in tactical vests arrived in dark-colored SUVs and blocked the car wash's entrance and exits, with some workers attempting to flee. Witnesses documented the operation on their cellphones, with one observer describing the scene as impactful.

Mauricio Prado, 45, was detained by ICE at a Home Depot in Santa Ana on October 6 while buying construction supplies. He is a father of five, including a US Navy veteran, and a stroke patient who has had six prior strokes and takes multiple medications. He was admitted to Orange County Global Medical Center. A friend recorded the arrest on a cell phone, during which Prado asked agents to remove their masks.

The first state-funded Prairie Thunder saturation patrol resulted in 44 felony drug arrests in Sioux Falls. Federal inmates including ICE detainees had to be moved from Minnehaha County Jail to other facilities to make room. U.S. Marshals and ICE transported 35 people to other regional facilities.

Silverio Villegas González, a 38-year-old line cook from Mexico, was fatally shot by an ICE agent on September 12, 2025, during a traffic stop in Franklin Park, Illinois, shortly after dropping off a child at daycare. ICE agents targeted him for an alleged history of reckless driving and positioned their vehicle to block his car. According to federal authorities, Villegas González attempted to flee and struck an agent with his vehicle, prompting the agent to shoot him in the neck. The agent reported serious injuries and claimed to have fired in fear for his life, though local police video later showed the agent walking and describing his injuries as "nothing major." Policing experts criticized the tactical approach as violating standard urban policing protocols, noting the agent reached into the vehicle—a violation of traffic stop safety procedures—and that shooting at a moving vehicle on a public roadway created an uncontrolled hazard. Family members and civil organizations called for an investigation into the use of force. The shooting remains under investigation.

ICE agents shot and killed Silverio Villegas González, a 38-year-old Mexican citizen, during a traffic stop in Franklin Park near Chicago. The Department of Homeland Security claimed Villegas González drove his car at officers, but witness videos and security footage show he was driving away from agents when shot. He was pronounced dead at Loyola Hospital after his vehicle crashed into a semitruck.

José Daniel López Peña, a 26-year-old from Honduras who came to the U.S. in 2020, was detained by ICE agents on Churn Creek Road while dropping off his girlfriend for work. According to his sister, agents showed no warrants and the family still does not know why he was detained. López Peña has never been arrested and has no deportation order but lacks legal status, and organizers say he is the sole caregiver for his 6 young siblings. He was transported to Mesa Verde Detention Facility. Hundreds of people gathered in Redding to protest his detention, and local officials said they had no information about the incident and directed questions to ICE.

Ruperto, a Mexican roofing contractor who lived and worked in Oklahoma for 28 years, was stopped by Oklahoma Highway Patrol after his truck blew a tire and overturned on an interstate in Oklahoma City. Troopers, working under ICE's 287(g) program, detained him despite having insurance and deported him to Mexico. He was transported through multiple facilities, including a jail in Purcell, before deportation, and agreed to voluntary removal rather than continue fighting through the legal system. His U.S. citizen daughter Karen, a college student majoring in elementary education, has stayed in school, while her older brother left school and work to support the family and cover the mortgage and other household expenses; the family has withheld their last name for fear of further immigration action. Ruperto cannot reapply for reentry for 10 years.

Omar Salazar, a Dallas community leader and SMU graduate, was detained by ICE for seven months following a traffic stop in Lubbock in August 2025 where he presented a Mexican ID and lacked a valid U.S. driver's license. After losing his immigration case, he was ordered deported to Mexico with 60 days to voluntarily depart. Salazar was brought to the U.S. as a minor at age 11, did not qualify for asylum, and missed DACA eligibility by a few months.