Human Impact Project

A man who entered the U.S. as a 10-year-old unaccompanied minor in 2018 and was paroled into the country was arrested in February 2026 during a Border Patrol roving patrol stop while driving. He has been detained ever since and has no criminal history. The court granted his habeas petition and ordered his immediate release, finding his detention without pre-deprivation process violated his constitutional due process rights. A woman who entered the United States without inspection in 2023 with a valid I-94 and California driver's license was served with a Notice to Appear in April 2023 for removal proceedings. She was taken into custody by immigration officials on December 13, 2026, and detained at the Karnes County Immigration Processing Center. The court granted her habeas petition and ordered her immediate release, finding her detention violated due process rights.

Ricky Chandee, a 52-year-old engineering technician for the city of Minneapolis and a Laotian refugee, was detained by ICE agents at his home in Brooklyn Park on January 24 amid a surge of federal immigration enforcement in Minnesota. Chandee, who fled Laos after the Vietnam War and never naturalized as a U.S. citizen, was targeted over a drive-by shooting conviction from more than three decades earlier. He was transported to a detention facility in El Paso, Texas, where he faced possible deportation to Laos. His case was reported alongside other Laotian refugees in Minnesota being deported at high rates under the Trump administration's mass deportation push, despite decades spent building lives and careers in the state. On May 4, 2026, the Minnesota Board of Pardons unanimously granted Chandee a pardon, one day before his scheduled deportation, potentially eliminating the legal basis for his removal.

A Cambodian refugee who entered the US as a child in 1982 was detained by ICE on May 4, 2026, after 25 years on supervised release. He had been living in the US under Orders of Supervision since 1999 following a 1997 drug conviction, but Cambodia has consistently refused to issue travel documents for his removal. The court granted a temporary restraining order requiring his immediate release, finding that ICE violated its own regulations by having an unauthorized officer revoke his supervision.

Manuela Hernandez, an asylum seeker from Colombia, was detained at California City's detention center for five months after her electronic monitoring device broke during a household accident in December 2025. She reported severe medical decline in custody, including fainting spells and a bacterial infection, while ICE pursued federal charges for property destruction. After her legal team filed a habeas corpus petition arguing the break was unintentional, she was released on May 4, 2026, and has reunited with her family while continuing her asylum case.

Diana Marquez Ruiz initially planned to self-deport with her two children on May 4, 2026, after her husband was removed from Aurora detention center. However, on the drive to the ICE field office, she became emotional and decided to turn back, unable to abandon her family dog in the United States. She and Cecilia had lived together and supported each other after their husbands' arrests.

Federal Magistrate Judge Joel Richlin ordered the release of Darwin Ortega Montufar from ICE custody on April 24, 2026, finding his arrest and detention violated his constitutional due process rights. Montufar was arrested on April 4 while going to work in Riverside County, held incommunicado for three days, and denied a bond hearing despite being compliant with ICE reporting obligations and having no criminal record.

Federal Border Patrol and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents, assisted by Texas Department of Public Safety, conducted an operation at a residence on Smith Avenue in a central Laredo neighborhood. Over 20 undocumented people were removed from the home. The condition of those found inside remained unknown.

Hana Francis, 26, was arrested at a sit-in demonstration in a hotel lobby on Southwest 2nd Avenue in Portland during May Day protests. She was charged with second-degree criminal trespass.

ICE Seattle took six people into custody who have serious criminal histories and are in the country without authorization, pending their removal. Those arrested include Miguel Salamanca-Alverez from Mexico with a felony conviction for five counts of assault; Angel Negrete-Villalobos with a felony conviction for first-degree assault and protective order violations; Alfredo Gallegos-Guillen with a history of assault arrests; Karla Daniela Gallegos-Holguin with a 2025 felony conviction for bringing methamphetamine into the country; and Bounlay Siackasorn from Laos with felony convictions for dealing meth, burglary, and theft.

A father named Marcus and his daughter are seeking community support and fundraising assistance following ICE enforcement activity under Operation Metro Surge. The family appears to be displaced and living in a campsite, with urgent appeals for donations to prevent the father's deportation.

Axel Gerardo Archaga Rios, an 18-year-old junior at Dunwoody High School who arrived in the U.S. at age 4 with his mother seeking asylum, was arrested by Dunwoody Police on March 27, 2026, for running a stop sign and driving without a valid license. He was booked into DeKalb County Jail under the 287(g) program, posted bond, and was released into ICE custody on March 29. Rios was transferred to Folkston ICE Processing Center near Brunswick, Georgia. His attorney filed a stay of removal and a motion to reopen his 2015 removal order to pursue asylum relief, but both requests were denied. Rios was deported to Honduras, where he subsequently adjusted to life with his grandmother.

A woman detained at Adelanto ICE Processing Center filed a pro se habeas corpus petition and emergency motion to prevent her removal from the United States. The federal court granted a temporary restraining order enjoining ICE from transferring or removing her from the Central District of California pending a preliminary injunction hearing. The court ordered ICE to ensure her appearance at the May 8, 2026 hearing.

Thousands of Portlanders took part in peaceful May Day demonstrations on May 2, 2026, marking International Workers' Day and linking labor rights with immigrant rights. By evening, hundreds marched to the ICE facility in South Portland, where five people were arrested after police said protesters threw rocks and water bottles at officers; one officer was hospitalized after being struck by a large rock, and another was treated at the scene. Seven additional arrests were made during a hotel sit-in on Southwest 2nd Avenue. The march came two days after a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel stayed earlier federal court orders limiting agents' use of crowd control munitions, and police said the Portland Police Bureau has made 94 arrests tied to ICE protest activity since June 2025.

Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian citizen, Fulbright scholar, and Columbia doctoral student in urban planning, had her visa revoked by DHS without explanation. ICE agents visited her building three times, twice without a warrant. She fled to the United States and remains in Canada.

Juan Gaspar, from a village near Quetzaltenango, was deported and signed a voluntary departure agreement. He reported that officers only collected a phone number but he received no message with stipend collection details a week after his expulsion.

Several hundred protesters gathered at Portland's ICE facility on May Day, with some marching onto the facility's driveway and rattling its gate before Portland police and Oregon State Police moved in to clear the area and make arrests. Officers said protesters threw rocks and water bottles, injuring an officer, while ICE agents remained inside the building throughout the confrontation. Police had made arrests earlier in the day, including nine people during a hotel sit-in demonstration, with additional arrests made near the ICE facility as the evening protest intensified. A police spokesperson said officers' intervention was prompted when demonstration activity "turned criminal."

A detained immigrant identified as Han filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus seeking immediate release and asking the court to prohibit his transfer or deportation without a hearing before a neutral decisionmaker. On May 1, 2026, the court issued a temporary order barring the government from deporting him until it rules on his custody status. A hearing was scheduled for May 4, 2026, and the government was ordered to respond by May 1, 2026.

A noncitizen is detained at ICE's Denver Contract Detention Facility despite an immigration judge ordering his release on an $8,000 bond. ICE invoked an automatic stay regulation to prevent his release while appealing the bond determination. The immigration judge later reconsidered and held that the petitioner's detention is mandatory under federal law.

A noncitizen from Cameroon who entered the U.S. in 2024 was granted withholding of removal to Cameroon on September 16, 2025. Despite this protection from deportation to his home country, he remained detained at the Adelanto Detention Facility for more than six months after his removal order became final. The court ordered his release within 24 hours, finding his continued detention violated due process since removal was not reasonably foreseeable.

Aled Damien Carbonell-Betancourt, a 27-year-old Cuban national, was found dead by apparent suicide, hanging from a bedsheet in his cell at the Miami Federal Detention Center. He had entered the U.S. legally in October 2024 under parole and was later arrested in Miami-Dade County in November 2025 on a charge of resisting an officer with violence, which prosecutors later dropped. He was transferred to ICE custody on February 11, 2026, held under a deportation order, and had been diagnosed with anxiety and prescribed medication the prior month, though he reportedly denied suicidal thoughts. His family launched a fundraising campaign to raise $3,000 to cremate his body and send his ashes to his parents in Cuba, who are unable to travel to the United States. His death marked the second reported suicide in Florida ICE custody within a month, and one of at least nine to ten suicides reported among men in ICE custody, and at least 49 to 51 deaths overall, since January 2025.