Human Impact Project

Joe Botello, a U.S. citizen born in Texas, was handcuffed and detained by federal agents during an immigration enforcement operation in Elgin on September 16, 2025. Agents forcibly entered his home, breaking down doors, and placed him in a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol vehicle before releasing him after scanning his driver's license. The operation, part of a larger immigration enforcement blitz in the Chicago area, also resulted in the detention of his roommates.

ICE agents detained two American citizens near an El Super grocery store in City Heights, San Diego, after they began recording a federal enforcement operation. Brooke Benner said she was handcuffed within 14 seconds of starting to film, while a second woman was tackled to the ground and handcuffed after witnesses said she kicked a federal vehicle. Both women were taken to a federal building downtown, held for about seven hours, and released without charges. DHS said the two were 'agitators attempting to impede operations,' while Benner said agents targeted her for criticizing them.

Brooke Benner, an American citizen with a young daughter, was detained by ICE agents in the parking lot of an El Super grocery store in San Diego's City Heights neighborhood after she began filming agents who had just detained another man. Within seconds of recording, agents grabbed and handcuffed Benner, telling her she was being arrested for "impeding" their operations. Shortly after, agents detained a second American citizen steps away in the same parking lot, after witnesses said she kicked a federal vehicle; community patrollers recording the encounter said two agents pinned her against a car before one tackled her to the ground, while another agent pointed a taser at bystanders. Both women were taken to a federal building downtown and held for about seven hours before being released without charges. Benner said the experience frightened her and that she plans to continue monitoring ICE activity in her community.

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 raided Bixby Knolls Car Wash in Long Beach, California, arresting seven workers from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico. Masked agents in tactical vests arrived in roughly 10 unmarked dark-colored SUVs, blocking the car wash's entrance and exits as some workers attempted to flee. During the operation, a woman being placed into a federal vehicle appeared to faint and collapse while in custody. Witnesses documented the raid on their cellphones, with one bystander describing the scene as impactful. A social media post also captured the incident, describing it as part of a broader pattern of workers being detained by federal agents.

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.

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.

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.

ICE agents detained Willian Gimenez in Little Village on September 12 while he entered a barbershop with his wife. ICE refused to disclose his location and denied his attorneys access to him. Gimenez is a plaintiff in a lawsuit against Home Depot and off-duty Chicago police for targeting immigrant day laborers.

Denis Omar Rivera Martinez, a 42-year-old parent from Honduras, was arrested by ICE agents outside Gerald E. Talbot Community School on September 11 and deported to Honduras on October 8. An immigration judge ordered his removal before Rivera Martinez could appear in court for a pending domestic violence charge, preventing him from responding to the allegations. The District Attorney stated ICE did not notify her office of his deportation status, and a scheduled court hearing on Thursday found neither prosecutors nor the judge aware of his whereabouts.