Human Impact Project

Kenchino Pierre, a 20-year-old asylum seeker from Haiti, was detained in New Bedford on Sept. 21, 2026. Federal court documents show an administrative warrant for his civil immigration detention was issued the same day he was taken into custody, even though he had a hearing scheduled at Boston Immigration Court for Sept. 29.

Lucas Santiago, a carpenter from San Luis Potosí, Mexico, was detained by ICE agents in South Austin on September 21, 2026, while driving to a job with his brother and a friend, one day after an ICE agent fatally shot 28-year-old Wilber Garces Perez in the area. His wife, Yesenia Esquivel Santiago, a lifelong Austin resident who met Lucas at Cristo Rey Catholic Church in 2016, said agents gave no explanation for his detention; the couple married in 2021, bought a home together, and had begun paperwork years ago to secure Lucas's legal status, which remains unresolved. Yesenia is now caring alone for their 14-month-old son, Yadiel, and preparing to give birth to their second child, after previously losing a first pregnancy at 19 weeks. Lucas remains held at a detention facility in Taylor, Texas, as Yesenia seeks legal help, income and child care while advocating publicly for his release.

Three undocumented brothers who shared a New Bedford apartment were detained together by ICE agents in a Market Basket parking lot during their weekly grocery trip. Their sister-in-law, Maria, said agents surrounded their car and were aggressive with the brother who was driving, twisting his arm behind his back. The brothers, originally from Honduras, worked in construction and as laborers, had no criminal records, and doted on their baby niece; their elderly mother has been deeply distressed by their detention. They are being held at Plymouth's ICE detention center.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested four people during a targeted enforcement operation in the Moab, Utah area. ICE said two were Mexican nationals with final removal orders or prior voluntary departures who had re-entered the country, while the other two were Turkish nationals described as being in the country without authorization, with no further details provided on their cases. Grand County Sheriff Jamison Wiggins said the operation was not relayed to his office in advance and called it an "unprecedented lack of information and communication," adding that administrative warrants were being served and that his office and Moab Police would not assist; ICE countered that it had notified local officials of the plans the prior Saturday and said it aims to be a good partner with local law enforcement. The Moab Valley Multicultural Center activated its emergency protocol, offering free rides and information to residents concerned about the ICE presence, and said agents were in the area from about 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., though it could not independently verify how many people were taken.

Following the mid-September enforcement operation that booked 13 people into the Burleigh Morton Detention Center, ICE activity in the Bismarck area increased further the week of Sept. 21, with a jail roster review showing 19 to more than two dozen people arrested by ICE in custody by Sept. 26. Two employees of Charras and Tequila, a Bismarck restaurant, were detained by ICE despite the owner's statement that they had documentation authorizing them to work in the U.S.; the restaurant closed temporarily afterward, citing fear among remaining staff. An ICE spokesperson said the two employees lack legal status and that work authorization does not confer it. About 75 people gathered Sept. 25 outside the William L. Guy Federal Building in Bismarck to protest the enforcement operations.

At least 40 people were detained by ICE agents in roadside stops and workplace encounters across New Bedford, Dartmouth, and Fall River, Massachusetts, according to Gov. Maura Healey and immigrant advocacy groups, with arrests also reported at Cumberland Farms, Market Basket, near fish houses, and at a Dunkin' on Nauset Street. A review of court records for 23 of the men by the New Bedford Light found 19 had no criminal charges beyond immigration-related misdemeanors, consistent with national data showing most ICE detainees lack criminal convictions. Video footage showed agents tackle and apply a taser to Augusto Lopes Vemba, a 40-year-old asylum-seeker from Angola, after he ran during his arrest near Acushnet Avenue. Attorneys with the Habeas Project of New England, a team of 20 volunteer lawyers, have filed habeas corpus petitions in federal courts in Massachusetts and Rhode Island to contest the detentions and prevent transfers out of state.

Rent-stabilized tenants in East Harlem, mostly noncitizens from Ecuador and Mexico, say landlord Steven Croman and his staff have harassed them for years, including by asking about immigration status after ICE agents were seen at one tenant's door in April 2025. Tenants believe the questioning and a subsequent call from Croman were intimidation tactics tied to their immigration status. Croman's company has been accused by the New York Attorney General of illegally displacing rent-stabilized tenants to convert units to market-rate rentals.

Jorge (a pseudonym), a Guatemalan man who fled gang extortion threats and joined family in San Diego, was arrested by ICE during a raid on his construction worksite after working there for five months. He spent three months in detention, much of it in frigid holding cells where he slept on bare concrete with only a foil sheet, and developed bronchitis after officers allegedly made cells colder in retaliation for complaints; staff denied him hospital care. He said he signed English-language deportation papers he could not read after being threatened with years in federal detention, later learning the signing carried a 10-year reentry bar, and described being shackled during his deportation flight to Guatemala.

Carlos Arreaga, a Syracuse resident and active community member for eight years, was taken into ICE custody on the morning of June 26 while on his way to work, without a warrant, according to his family's GoFundMe page. He had filed for asylum in the U.S. and was held at the federal detention facility in Batavia, which has faced criticism for overcrowding and poor conditions. Despite a federal judge's order that he receive a bond hearing, Arreaga was repeatedly denied bond. His wife, Amelia, launched a fundraiser to cover legal fees and living expenses after his detention left the family without its sole breadwinner, and about 70 community members gathered at a vigil in Syracuse calling for his release. After roughly three months in detention, Arreaga was released and reunited with his family.

Leonardo 'Leo' Garcia Venegas, a 25-year-old U.S.-born citizen of Mexican descent working construction in Baldwin County, Alabama, was detained by immigration agents multiple times beginning in May 2025 despite presenting a valid Alabama REAL ID. In the first incident, armed agents raided a Foley construction site, tackled his undocumented brother, and held Garcia Venegas handcuffed for over an hour after he began filming and asserted his citizenship; his brother was later deported. Weeks later, agents detained him again at another job site, again dismissing his ID as fake despite him also providing his Social Security card. In a third encounter, officers followed him home, pulled him from his vehicle, tackled him, and shackled him. Never charged with a crime, Garcia Venegas testified before Congress saying 'I don't feel free,' and filed a federal lawsuit with the Institute for Justice against DHS officials, including Tom Homan and Kristi Noem, alleging Fourth Amendment violations, assault, battery, and false arrest. A federal judge in the Southern District of Alabama denied the government's motion to dismiss and temporarily halted warrantless construction-site raids, a ruling Garcia Venegas called 'a huge blow to lawless enforcement practices.'

A Senegalese woman deported to Ghana under a third-country removal arrangement was sent, along with other detainees, to a remote military camp with little electricity or outside contact after Ghanaian officials reacted angrily to viral video of another deportee being forcibly removed. Fearing she would be returned to Senegal, she attempted suicide by drinking bleach and was hospitalized before being deported back to Senegal anyway.

Gisèle, who fled fighting between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, was deported by US authorities to Cameroon under a third-country removal agreement. Suffering from a thyroid condition, she was never able to obtain her medication at the Yaoundé migrant shelter despite repeated requests, and after five months there she abandoned plans to seek asylum in Cameroon and agreed to be sent back to the DR Congo out of concern her health would worsen.

Isatou, a pseudonym for a woman from Guinea who migrated to the U.S. to escape a forced marriage, was removed to Ghana as a third-country destination and subsequently sent back to Guinea, her country of origin. Months after her removal, she said she has had to hide out of fear of encountering her family. "I don’t go out anymore, I’m scared of coming across my family," she said. "They ruined my life."

José Serrano Salgado, Ecuador's former interior minister under President Rafael Correa, fled to Miami in 2021 and later applied for asylum. ICE arrested him outside his Miami home in mid-2025, and he spent nearly a year detained at Krome North Service Processing Center, where a source said he lost about 25 pounds and his prediabetes worsened into diabetes. In May 2026, an immigration judge denied his asylum claim but granted deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture after he showed he faced torture if returned to Ecuador. Three Trump-appointed appeals judges reversed that protection within a day of reviewing the case, and Serrano was deported to Ecuador within hours, sent on a private jet in late August 2026. He now faces murder charges over the 2023 assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio and is held in a maximum-security prison, where a source said he has been abused, including having his fingernails smashed, being denied food, and being told footage of him stripped naked would be shared with Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa, a political rival of his former boss.

Kevin was detained and later transferred to ICE detention in Virginia, according to a GoFundMe campaign organized by his friend Dani Lagraba. His family and friends have been navigating legal and immigration challenges connected to his case and upcoming court proceedings. The fundraiser aims to help cover legal representation, attorney fees, and other case-related expenses as his family supports him through the process.

A crowd gathered at the scene of the ICE shooting in Austin throughout the afternoon, and officers fired pepper ball-like projectiles at the crowd after some demonstrators threw rocks and water bottles at law enforcement while people were leaving the area. A 14-year-old boy was among those affected by the chemical agent, according to his father, who spoke to Austin police. Austin Mayor Kirk Watson called for an independent investigation into the earlier shooting, citing the chaos it caused in the city.

Javier Rueda, a Venezuelan immigrant, has been held in ICE custody in Oklahoma for approximately seven months. His family says an immigration judge approved his asylum request after a nine-hour hearing, but the government has appealed the decision, keeping him detained. A bond of $20,000 has been set, and his family is seeking donations to pay it within a required deadline, warning that without the funds he could remain detained for several more months awaiting the appeal.

Ahmed Soliman, a gay man in his early 30s who fled Egypt as a child and grew up in Phoenix and Tucson, had won a judge's ruling protecting him from deportation to Egypt over fears of persecution based on his sexuality and family history. Despite this ruling and a pending habeas petition, ICE transferred him from Arizona to Louisiana and deported him in April 2026 to a decommissioned hotel in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, under a $7.5 million third-country removal deal that has sent at least 66 people there since November 2025. After guards confiscated detainees' phones, police pointed rifles at Soliman and forced him to his knees when he tried to film officers and the forced removal of other detainees to Ethiopia. Amnesty International reported he was bound and beaten by police upon arrival. After speaking to journalists, including the American Prospect, about conditions at the facility, he was arrested on accusations of damaging property, then blindfolded, beaten, and pushed down a staircase before being transferred to a prison in Malabo. He and another detainee from Eritrea have since been missing for more than a week, with his attorneys unable to confirm charges against him or his location and fearing for his life, believing the arrest was retaliation for speaking to the media.

On August 19, 2025, ICE agents stopped two vans carrying construction workers on Interstate 99 and Route 220 near Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, as they traveled to a job building the Mount Nittany Medical Center patient tower. ICE confirmed 24 arrests in what it called a 'targeted enforcement operation,' though immigrant rights groups said as many as 26 men — nationals of Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras — were taken into custody. A foreman driving some workers from their motel said he was pulled over by two unmarked vehicles, and witnesses said agents confiscated phones, questioned workers about their origins and work permits, and restrained them before detention, with some reportedly holding valid work permits and identification. The men were transferred to Pike County Correctional Facility, Clinton County Correctional Facility, and Moshannon Valley Processing Center. A state representative and local advocacy groups said they struggled for a week to obtain basic information about the detainees and raised due process concerns, including allegations some were coerced into signing self-deportation orders. Community organizers described the men as 'partners, sons, brothers and fathers,' saying the arrests disrupted households in the community.

Roberto Mosquera del Peral, a 59-year-old Cuban immigrant who arrived in the U.S. as a child during the 1980 Mariel boatlift and worked as a plumber while raising four daughters, was detained by ICE at a routine immigration appointment and held at the Krome detention center in Florida. He was later flown from Texas and deported without his consent to Eswatini in southern Africa under the Trump administration's third-country deportation program, since Cuba has refused to accept his return for nearly three decades. He has been held in a maximum-security cell at Matsapha Correctional Complex without being charged with any offense or given access to legal counsel. His lawyer said he staged a 30-day hunger strike, at one point raising serious health concerns, to win small concessions such as wearing his own clothes and having a cellphone to speak with family. Civic groups in Eswatini have filed court cases challenging the legality of detaining him and other deportees without charge.