Human Impact Project

Six foreign nationals were arrested between November 2025 and January 2026 and charged with being inadmissible as persons present without admission in the United States. They were detained at the Adelanto Detention Center and Desert View Annex without individualized bond hearings. The court granted a temporary restraining order requiring bond hearings within 7 days or immediate release.

A Guatemalan asylum seeker who fled to the U.S. in April 2024 was arrested on December 11, 2025, while attending a scheduled ICE check-in at 630 Sansome Street in San Francisco. She had been released on her own recognizance, complied with all supervision conditions, and had no criminal history. The court granted a temporary restraining order requiring her immediate release, finding her detention likely violated her constitutional due process rights.

Viktoriia Bulavina, a 46-year-old Ukrainian woman who entered the US in September 2022 under the Uniting for Ukraine program, was detained by ICE on December 4, 2025, during a scheduled green card interview at the USCIS San Diego Field Office. She is married to US citizen Victor Korol. Bulavina spent three days in the downtown San Diego ICE facility, where she reported harsh conditions including lack of sleep, inability to change clothes or shower, cold temperatures, expired food, and inadequate privacy. Her attorney stated she had complied with all immigration procedures and was renewing her Temporary Protected Status when detained, with her legal team asserting her TPS application was approved in June 2024, while DHS claimed her TPS had expired in April 2025. She was released after five days in custody, with her TPS extension approved the day of her release.

A Chinese activist who entered the U.S. on an F-1 student visa in May 2016 and engaged in publicly documented activism against the Chinese Communist Party was arrested on December 9, 2025, during a traffic stop in Yermo, California after immigration agents conducting surveillance identified him from a photograph. He had lived openly in the U.S. for over nine years without immigration enforcement contact. He was charged as deportable for visa overstay and detained at Adelanto ICE Processing Center. On June 16, 2026, an immigration judge denied his bond request, finding him a flight risk. The federal court denied his habeas petition seeking immediate release, finding that a post-deprivation bond hearing under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a) satisfied his due process rights.

A Mexican citizen who entered the U.S. on a B-2 visa in 2019 and overstayed was arrested during a targeted ICE raid in Los Angeles on December 8, 2025, without an arrest warrant. He was detained and received a bond hearing on April 30, 2026, where bond was denied. The federal court granted his habeas corpus petition, finding the arrest violated 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a) requirements and ordered his immediate release, prohibiting re-detention without a pre-detention hearing before an immigration judge.

Immigration agents took a cash box from a taco stand in La Puente after arresting four people at the location, according to a witness account. The incident involved the confiscation of the business's cash box during the enforcement action.

ICE agents arrested Julio, a man with end-stage kidney failure requiring regular dialysis, as he returned home from a medical appointment. He was held in detention facilities and denied appropriate medical care, eventually suffering a severe stroke while hospitalized under ICE surveillance. His family, all U.S. citizens including a military servicemember, advocated for his release but ICE refused despite his critical medical needs.

A behavioral therapist for children in Key Largo, Florida, was pulled over by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents while driving to work in a car registered to her undocumented partner. Video recorded in part by a Miami Herald reporter showed agents unlocking her door, dragging her from the vehicle, searching her purse, and handcuffing her as she screamed that she was a U.S. citizen and asked for help. The woman, described as under 5 feet tall and 85 pounds, said she complied with instructions to roll down her window but declined to show identification until agents located her driver's license and confirmed her citizenship, releasing her about 10 minutes after the stop began. She said this was the third time she had been stopped in the same area and that the experience left her unable to sleep, in physical pain, and emotionally traumatized. CBP said the stop stemmed from identifying her partner as undocumented, and the broader operation led to 14 undocumented immigrants being arrested. U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said the incident reflected a pattern of racial profiling, protesters later gathered in Islamorada, and the case is one of more than 500 documented by ProPublica involving U.S. citizens detained by immigration agents.

An asylum seeker from Ecuador who fled extortion and death threats was detained by ICE on December 3, 2025 during a routine check-in at 630 Sansome Street in San Francisco. Despite having no criminal record and consistently appearing for immigration hearings, ICE alleged she missed a July 23, 2025 check-in that was not visible on her application. The court granted a temporary restraining order requiring her immediate release and prohibiting re-detention without a pre-deprivation hearing.

A 32-year-old Turkish man was detained and transferred to ICE custody while working as a driver, before he could receive follow-up medical care despite blood tests indicating he needed prompt treatment. He has rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic autoimmune disease causing intense pain in his neck and ankles. His family attempted to deliver medication to Otay Mesa but was turned away. His sister, brother-in-law, cousin, uncle and a family friend submitted court declarations supporting his release and attesting to his community standing. A judge granted his habeas corpus petition and ordered a bond hearing within seven days, considering his documented medical conditions.

Noemi, a Guatemalan asylum seeker, witnessed ICE agents smash a window of her family's car and forcibly remove her Mexican national partner from the vehicle while she and their three children (ages 1, 7, and 9) were inside an ICE office for a check-in appointment in December. Her partner was sent to Adelanto ICE Processing Center. The three children subsequently experienced significant emotional and behavioral regression, including depression, sleep disturbances, developmental regression (the 1-year-old returned to crawling), and academic decline.

Noemi, a Guatemalan asylum seeker, was at an ICE check-in appointment when immigration agents smashed the car window and forcibly removed her Mexican national partner, who had lived in the U.S. for nearly 20 years. Officers attempted to separate Noemi from her three young children (ages 1, 7, and 9) but the children's screams prevented separation. Her partner was sent to Adelanto ICE Processing Center. Since the detention, the couple's children have experienced depression, eating disorders, sleep disturbances, regression (including a 1-year-old reverting to crawling), and cognitive decline.

Diana Sanchez Ledezma, a Stockton-area DJ known as DJ Reina Azteca with pending asylum and U-visa applications, was detained by ICE officers at a check-in appointment on December 18, 2025, despite being enrolled in the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program and requesting deportation herself. During processing at Otay Mesa Detention Center, she initially refused a medical screening and pregnancy test out of fear, having heard accounts of forced abortions and hysterectomies in detention, and was held unclothed in a cold cell before relenting. Over nearly four months in custody, she witnessed medical emergencies including strokes and fainting, reported inadequate care and poor food, and faced retaliation from guards after filing grievances; she also lost her deactivated DJ account and entire music library. A federal judge ruled in her favor in April 2026, finding ICE lacked authority to detain her, and she was released, though she has struggled to rebuild her music career while awaiting the return of her identification documents.

From November 26 through December 1, 2025, ICE and HSI stopped and questioned approximately 25 people during Thanksgiving week, detaining at least 15 of them. Operations spanned multiple Southern California locations including the San Fernando Valley (Moorpark, Thousand Oaks, Carlsbad), San Bernardino area (San Bernardino, Ontario, Fontana, Montclair), San Diego, and Orange County, with at least two detentions confirmed on Thanksgiving Day itself. ICE employed increased vehicle stops, questioned people at gas stations and bus stops, and was observed near detention facilities in San Luis Obispo, Oxnard, Rialto, and El Monte.

Community organizers in Fontana, California are providing legal representation and mental health support resources to an Indigenous family in connection with immigration enforcement actions.

A person warned their community that ICE agents were staging outside houses and then parked at a trolley station to observe. When ICE agents returned to the station, they attempted to detain the person, who fled because the agents were masked and refused to identify themselves. The person claims to be an American citizen and states that other people were also detained at the scene.

San Diego Humane Society has taken in 18 pets from 11 owners since June 2025, operating at 173% capacity. Animals including Tita, a 4-year-old Chihuahua whose owners were deported, and Cata, a pit bull mix found in Mira Mesa after her owner's deportation, are among those left behind. The county Department of Animal Services has also received pets from deported individuals.

Matheus Silveira, 30, a Brazilian national, was detained by ICE agents during his green card interview at a USCIS office in San Diego on November 24, after his marriage-based application had just been approved. His wife, Hannah Silveira, an Army veteran and California attorney, said agents burst into the interview room and arrested her husband on a warrant tied to his overstaying a student visa, despite their marriage. He remains at Otay Mesa Detention Center, where he has described inadequate food and sleeping on the floor in a crowded room, and has since been granted voluntary departure rather than deportation, barring his return to the U.S. for 10 years. The couple, married since August 2024, now plans to relocate to Rio de Janeiro once he is released.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted enforcement operations in Long Beach on Thursday, resulting in at least nine detentions at workplaces. Mayor Rex Richardson and Supervisor Janice Hahn commented on the operations, with Richardson referencing a violent incident involving a gardener at a restaurant. DHS stated six people in the country without authorization from Mexico were arrested who had prior criminal histories.

Federal immigration agents detained a gardener in Long Beach's University Park Estates neighborhood after chasing him into Polly's Pies restaurant and tackling him in front of two off-duty Long Beach Police Department officers, who did not intervene after recognizing the operation as federal immigration enforcement. The man claimed to be a dual citizen and showed agents an identification card during the encounter. Restaurant staff who knew him contacted his family, and a local business improvement district board member retrieved the keys to his work truck for them. Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson criticized the operation as an "abduction," saying it reflected "a pattern of enforcement rooted in fear and intimidation." Agents also arrested three people outside Cherry Donuts and were reported at four additional locations that morning, including a church and intersections along Pacific Coast Highway.