Human Impact Project

Local activist Grace Graybill attempted to film a police traffic stop of a contractor's pickup truck while sitting in her own vehicle, far back along a public stretch of Route 15 in Carroll Township, Pennsylvania, where police have been making arrests under a 287(g) cooperation agreement with ICE. Police Sgt. Terry Williams rushed over and ordered her to stop recording, telling her "You're interfering with our traffic stop! Go! ... Stop following the police department around" and that she had "no business being here," before warning her to "move, or you're going to get yourself in trouble." Courts have repeatedly ruled that Pennsylvania citizens have a right to film public traffic stops. A township resident later cited the video of Williams as an example of how the ICE partnership was changing the character of the police department.

A Haitian man with Temporary Protected Status, married with an 18-month-old child, left home one Sunday evening in late summer to withdraw cash at an ATM in West York Borough, Pennsylvania, and never returned. His wife issued a public plea for help, prompting local community activists to track him down at the overcrowded Moshannon Valley Detention Center. He is among roughly 12,000 Haitians in York County who lost protected status after the Trump administration ended TPS in late July.

Rep. Ilhan Omar's Washington, D.C.-area home was raided before dawn on Monday by Homeland Security Investigations agents executing a federal search warrant obtained by the Justice Department. Omar, a Somali-born refugee who arrived in the U.S. in 1995 and became a citizen in 2000 through paperwork filed by her late father, said 'I'm ok' and accused the Trump administration of targeting a political enemy and weaponizing federal law enforcement after a decade of what she called baseless claims. Investigators are reportedly examining a discrepancy in historical birth-year records suggesting she may have been older than 17 when she obtained citizenship, as well as unsubstantiated allegations pushed by border czar Tom Homan, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Vice President JD Vance that she married a man accused of being her brother for citizenship purposes. No charges have been filed, and Democratic leaders including Hakeem Jeffries called the raid 'deeply disturbing.' An immigration attorney noted the government faces a high legal bar to prove marriage fraud, and the search came weeks before Omar's reelection bid in Minnesota.

Miguel Parra-Hernandez, a 48-year-old undocumented man from Mexico, was struck by an unmarked ICE vehicle on Clay Road in northwest Harris County, Texas, while on his way to work on a Saturday morning. ICE agents were attempting to arrest Jose Mendoza-Cervantes, who had a final removal order and prior DUI and unlawful firearm possession arrests, when both men fled the vehicle on foot. ICE said Parra-Hernandez ran in front of the vehicle, while Harris County officials said an agent was attempting to box the men in; surveillance footage reviewed by family and media appeared to show the agent steering toward him. Parra-Hernandez suffered a leg broken in three places, was hospitalized for expected surgery, and was then transferred into ICE custody, where he remains in stable condition with unclear legal representation. His family, FIEL Houston executive director Cesar Espinosa, and Harris County Precinct 4 Commissioner Lesley Briones—who said she was 'horrified'—have demanded his release, release of the video, and an investigation. The Harris County Sheriff's Office and district attorney's office are conducting independent investigations into the incident.

Pastor Molis Augustave, 33, a faith leader at Iglesia de Dios Voz de Alerta in York, Pennsylvania and former community organizer with We Are CASA, was stopped by West Manchester Township police while driving for DoorDash after losing his work permit when TPS protections ended. Officers cited a broken headlight and, Augustave said, treated him roughly—leaving him with ongoing neck and back pain—before turning him over to ICE under the township's 287(g) agreement. Despite having an approved I-130 petition, a pending green card application, a motion to reopen before the Board of Immigration Appeals, and a federal habeas petition, he was held at Moshannon Valley Detention Center, flown through Louisiana, and deported to Haiti after 19 days in custody, the same country he had fled a decade earlier due to gang violence. While detained, he led a Bible study group and counseled a fellow detainee contemplating suicide. His U.S.-citizen wife, Omara Boniface Nunez, briefly secured his removal from an initial deportation flight through advocacy efforts, but USCIS denied his green card application days later. He leaves behind his wife and their children—a 2-year-old son, 9-year-old stepdaughter, and another child—who remain in York, where his motion to reopen his case is still pending.

ICE agents arrested a Mexican immigrant at his Chico home on the morning of Oct. 9 and, according to neighborhood sources, transported him to Sacramento before transferring him to the California City Immigration Processing Center in Kern County. ICE agents also reportedly went to Citrus Elementary School, where the man had dropped off his daughter. A neighbor described him as "a hard-working person" who provides for his family and "didn't bother anybody." NorCal Resist Chico's Migra Watch team confirmed the detention after ICE arrived at a West 4th Avenue apartment complex.

Blanca Ortiz is working to secure the release of her husband, Carlos Ortiz Jara, 49, a Mexican national who was detained by ICE agents on May 12, 2026, in the parking lot of a USCIS office in Pomona, California, where he had gone for a fingerprinting appointment tied to his pending immigrant visa application. The couple, married since 1999, have four U.S.-born children, including a son who serves as a Marine Corps sergeant and has moved his own family into his parents' home to help cover the mortgage. Carlos co-owned an auto mechanic shop in Jurupa Valley, where he had worked for 20 years, and had previously been deported decades earlier following a 1998 border crossing attempt after fleeing cartel violence; he was pursuing a visa petition under the Violence Against Women Act when detained. He remains held at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, where Blanca has visited him behind glass and described him as broken down. A habeas corpus petition challenging his detention was filed June 19, 2026, and remains pending, while the family has spent roughly $40,000 on legal fees. A DHS spokesperson said he was detained during an enforcement operation and noted that pending applications do not confer legal status.

Oscar Belgal, a 28-year-old Dominican father, was shot in the neck by a plainclothes ICE agent during an arrest attempt in the Marble Hill neighborhood of the Bronx while his 5-year-old son sat in the backseat of his car. Agents approached with guns drawn and opened fire, reportedly seven shots, after Belgal's car moved; ICE said the vehicle struck government vehicles and accelerated toward officers, a claim Belgal disputes. His son was unharmed and later found safe with relatives at a Yonkers beauty salon. A bystander, Iris Rosa, said she ran to help Belgal, who told her he thought he was dying. The agent, identified as Brenden Cuni, was disguised as a construction worker and has been named in prior lawsuits alleging violent arrests, including one where a judge found he lied in court documents. Belgal was hospitalized, then taken by ICE into custody and transferred to a Brooklyn detention facility, where he remains in solitary confinement with a bullet still in his neck. His attorneys, including Harold Solis of the Legal Aid Society, filed a federal habeas corpus petition arguing he lacked a valid arrest warrant, and a judge barred his deportation or transfer. Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he spent two hours negotiating with President Trump and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin for Belgal's release and called for ICE to leave the city; Gov. Kathy Hochul demanded an accounting, and Rep. Adriano Espaillat said he was blocked from visiting Belgal in the hospital. Protests occurred outside the hospital and in the neighborhood, with some clashes between police and demonstrators, while DHS defended the shooting as justified.

Carlos Maldonado Valle, a 21-year-old Honduras native studying criminal justice at Cape Cod Community College and volunteering as a community service officer with the Provincetown Police Department, was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at Logan Airport's Terminal E. His domestic flight from Puerto Rico was diverted through Bermuda due to a passenger medical emergency, and upon return to Boston it was treated as an international flight, forcing passengers through customs despite most lacking passports; as a holder of a Special Immigrant Juvenile visa, which he received October 1 and which otherwise placed him on a path to a green card, he lacked the travel permission document required to leave the country even though he never intended to. He was held alone in a cell for about 44 hours without access to his phone, ID, family, or an attorney, and said he suffered repeated panic attacks after being told he would be sent back to Honduras, the country he left as a child with his mother seeking asylum. A federal judge issued an emergency order blocking his removal or transfer out of Massachusetts while his habeas corpus petition was pending, and he was released October 8 after paying $1,020 in parole fees, with his attorney Rachel Self saying he hugged her crying with relief and had no criminal background. Provincetown Town Manager Alex Morse and Police Chief Gregory Hennick submitted letters supporting his release, praising his work helping elderly and medically vulnerable residents at the town's emergency shelter during a four-day power outage in a February winter storm; Morse said 'Carlos never should have been detained and put through this ordeal.' A GoFundMe campaign launched by Provincetown residents raised more than $25,000 for his legal fees and expenses within hours.

Idris Makhmudov, a Russian citizen of Chechen origin born in Kazakhstan, was detained by immigration authorities on July 13, 2024, at the Nogales, Arizona border crossing after requesting entry. He spent nearly 27 months at the GEO Group-run Folkston D. Ray James ICE Processing Center in Georgia, far exceeding the facility's average detention length of 34.6 days, without being charged with a crime. Makhmudov helped organize a mass hunger strike involving at least 73 detainees, including asylum seekers from Russia, China, Sudan, Afghanistan, Nepal and Yemen, protesting prolonged detention and conditions such as inadequate medical care, moldy food and dirty water. He also helped prepare a June collective appeal signed by 45 detainees and recorded a video describing conditions inside the facility; his attorney, Samantha Hamilton, said he and others who appeared in the video were placed in segregation as retaliation. A federal judge denied his motion challenging the legality of his detention on September 28, overruling a magistrate's recommendation for a bail hearing. Makhmudov was deported after refusing food and water for four days and reportedly lost consciousness during the deportation flight.

Nancy Martinez, a 37-year-old factory worker who had lived in New Haven, Connecticut for 15 years, was arrested by ICE agents on June 9, 2025, while driving her two U.S. citizen children to school. Masked, armed agents in unmarked vehicles boxed in her car and handcuffed her without presenting a warrant or identifying themselves, leaving her children—one of whom has autism spectrum disorder—without a guardian present. Martinez's grandmother came to care for the children after the arrest. She was held for about a month in detention facilities across Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, and Texas, including the Wyatt Detention Facility, before being deported to Mexico, where she now lives with family in Naucalpan de Juárez, sells clothing on the street, and parents her children by phone. With support from the Yale Law School Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic, Martinez filed a federal lawsuit against ICE and the government alleging assault, recklessness, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and unlawful detention, seeking financial damages though it would not allow her to return to the U.S.

Paul Jack Cobby Essel, 51, a grants accounting manager at Missouri State University and a native of Ghana, was arrested by ICE off campus in Springfield around 1:20 p.m. on Oct. 7, 2026, and booked into the Greene County Jail, where he is being held without bond. Essel entered the U.S. legally on a student visa in 2003, earned two graduate degrees at MSU between 2008 and 2014, and has worked at the university since 2010, serving as grants accounting manager since 2019. His removal order stems from a 2015 immigration judge ruling that his first marriage to a U.S. citizen was fraudulent; he remarried a U.S. citizen weeks later, and though her 2018 petition on his behalf was approved, subsequent motions to reopen his case were denied, including by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in December 2023. Essel has no criminal record aside from two minor driving offenses, is married with three children, and is an active member of the Springfield Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, having recently offered a prayer at the groundbreaking for its new Springfield temple. Neighbors describe his family as 'humble, gracious, generous,' and Missouri State called him a 'valued, long-standing member' of the university community, placing him on paid administrative leave. A community petition titled 'Bring Paul Home' asks ICE to pause his deportation and allow him to remain with his family while his attorneys continue pursuing his case.

A shackled immigration detainee was thrown to the ground and placed in a WRAP full-body restraint device before being carried onto an ICE Air deportation flight at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Observers said it was the first time they had seen the restraint device used during an ICE Air operation in Minnesota. The detainee was one of three people reportedly unloaded in Minnesota via El Paso, Texas or Omaha, Nebraska that day.

Leonardo Pinzon Fernandez, a native and citizen of Colombia, entered the United States with his wife and stepdaughter in December 2022 and was released on humanitarian parole. He had a pending asylum application, valid employment authorization, and had lived for over three years with a fixed residence and steady employment. On June 27, 2026, ICE detained him at his home in Los Angeles without notice, days after briefly detaining and releasing him at a construction site. A federal judge granted his habeas corpus petition, finding his detention unlawful and ordering his immediate release from the Adelanto ICE Processing Center.

Three siblings in Brownsville, Texas, stopped last summer to film federal agents conducting an immigration arrest and were themselves detained after agents tried to seize their phones. One sibling, a young teenager around 14, said an officer tackled him to the ground and placed a knee behind his knee, causing sharp pain. He was separated from his mother, a green card holder, and feared agents would detain her as well. The siblings have since filed damage claims against the government. DHS said it respects the First Amendment right to observe and film but will intervene if filming 'interferes with or obstructs' operations. Their case is among more than 500 U.S. citizens reported detained nationally during immigration enforcement actions, some handcuffed or held at gunpoint.

Ahmed Soliman, an Egyptian-born lawful permanent resident in his early 30s who came to the U.S. at age four and grew up in Phoenix and Tucson, was deported to Equatorial Guinea despite a court ruling blocking his removal to Egypt over fears of persecution based on his sexuality. He was deported under a $7.5 million third-country removal deal before a scheduled hearing on his persecution claim, with officials revealing his destination only moments before boarding and denying his fear interview request. After video surfaced showing Equatorial Guinean police pointing firearms at Soliman and other detainees at a hotel in Malabo, and after he spoke to journalists about facility conditions, he was arrested, blindfolded, beaten, pushed down a staircase, and held incommunicado for more than a week at a police station also used to detain human rights activists. U.S. District Judge John C. Hinderaker ruled that DHS violated Soliman's due process rights, an account of abuse the Trump administration did not contest, and ordered officials to facilitate his return. His lawyers later announced he had been released from custody after weeks of detention without charge.

Jeury Concepcion, a 19-year-old U.S. citizen from the Bronx, was tackled and handcuffed by masked ICE agents near East Gun Hill Road and Hull Avenue after being mistaken for a man with a removal order, minutes after another man was detained nearby. Cellphone video showed agents forcing him to the ground as a bystander shouted 'Why you kidnapping?!' and witnesses said he repeatedly identified himself as a U.S. citizen while being restrained and left bleeding from a head wound. "He just grabbed me and threw me on the floor," Concepcion recalled. Agents eventually checked his ID, apologized, and left him bloodied in an unfamiliar park, where his mother and grandmother, Ivelisse Garcia Santana, found him and took him for treatment; he was diagnosed with a concussion and received stitches. A DHS spokesperson claimed he was briefly detained for matching a description and refusing to identify himself, but Judge Gary R. Brown reviewed the video, called the incident 'extremely violent,' found ICE officers gave 'inconsistent, false and misleading testimony' and falsified records, and ruled the arrest illegal. The judge ordered the government to propose remedies and detail steps to ensure future arrests comply with the law; Concepcion has since been released. His case is among more than 500 U.S. citizens identified as having been detained by immigration agents during the Trump administration.

Jeyli Salguero, a 20-year-old U.S. citizen, was asleep at her family's Minneapolis-area home in January 2026 when armed federal agents broke through the front door searching for her brother, who did not live there. Salguero said she told agents she was a citizen with the right to record, after which they seized her phone; she and her mother were released about half an hour later. Her father, who held temporary protected status, and her undocumented sister were detained in the raid, leaving the family's door broken and exposed to winter weather. Her sister was later deported to El Salvador, while her father was eventually released from detention. Salguero is now one of several plaintiffs, represented by Protect Democracy, the ACLU of Minnesota and Dorsey & Whitney, suing the federal government over a DHS memo allowing ICE agents to enter homes using administrative rather than judicial warrants. The lawsuit is part of broader legal challenges to immigration enforcement activity in Minneapolis.

Baldemar Gutierrez, a 15-year-old U.S. citizen with significant hearing loss, speech delays, and developmental disabilities, was pulled from a car and handcuffed at gunpoint by masked federal agents outside Arleta High School in Los Angeles on August 11, 2025, while his mother, Andreina Mejia, was nearby enrolling his sister in school. Agents showed a photo of a Salvadoran national suspected of gang ties, mistaking Baldemar for him, and released him only after he repeatedly stated his name and citizenship during the roughly seven-minute encounter. Mejia, a San Fernando Valley resident of more than 20 years, said she intervened to protect her son and that an agent told him the mistake would make an 'exciting story to tell' his friends; she said he has since felt harassed and unsafe. School officials said agents left bullets at the scene, prompting increased school police patrols. The family's attorneys filed a $1 million claim against DHS, CBP, Border Patrol and ICE alleging racial profiling, false arrest, false imprisonment, and assault and battery; DHS denied racial profiling, calling it a case of mistaken identity. The case has been cited as part of a broader pattern of more than 500 U.S. citizens detained by ICE, despite DHS statements that ICE does not restrain or zip-tie children.

Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales, a 22-year-old mother born in Laurel, Maryland, was detained by ICE near her Baltimore home on December 14, 2025. Her attorney described the stop as a 'Kavanaugh Stop,' linking it to a 2023 CBP encounter in Arizona where she was recorded claiming Mexican citizenship. Despite her family and attorneys presenting a Maryland birth certificate, hospital birth records, and fingerprints, DHS maintained she was not a citizen and pursued removal proceedings. A federal judge blocked her deportation days after her arrest, but she remained in custody for 25 days, transferred five times through facilities in Louisiana, Texas, and New Jersey, missing Christmas with her 5-year-old son. She was released on January 7, 2026 with an ankle monitor and reunited with her son. Her attorneys maintained the documentation clearly established her citizenship. On June 17, 2026, DHS dismissed her deportation case after confirming her birth in Maryland, and she obtained a U.S. passport. Her case was cited among more than 500 U.S. citizens reported detained by ICE nationally.