Human Impact Project

Luis Baltazar-Martinez, a truck driver and father of six who was brought to the U.S. from Mexico at age 2, has been held for more than a month at the Butler County Jail on an ICE hold after being pulled over while driving in Ohio. His wife, Ali Baltazar-Martinez, says he holds a work permit valid until 2029 and that the couple has been pursuing his green card through an I-130 petition since marrying in 2018. The family, who live in Monroeville, Indiana, make a weekly two-and-a-half-hour drive to visit him for 30 minutes, and Ali says their four young children struggle with his absence and fear he could be deported to a country where he has no remaining ties.

Sukhdev Singh, a commercial truck driver, critically injured a pedestrian in a March crash in Indianapolis. ICE publicized his arrest as part of its broader crackdown on immigrant truckers and sent him to the Hopkins County jail in Kentucky. His case was among several crashes cited by Indiana's Republican-led legislature as justification for tightening licensing restrictions on immigrant commercial truck drivers.

A Haitian truck driver said he was pulled over by police in Indiana in June while heading to Ohio for a delivery, after an officer cited a missing trailer reflector that he said he actually had. He said he produced all the documents the officer requested but was still arrested and taken to an immigration detention facility without explanation. His case was among dozens reviewed by reporters in which commercial truckers were stopped by police and then handed over to ICE.

Gurpreet Singh, a commercial truck driver, was driving north on Interstate 69 near Muncie, Indiana when a tire blew out and he was taken to a hospital for stitches. After treatment, Indiana State Police arrested him at the hospital for immigration violations and turned him over to ICE, which transferred him to the Daviess County jail in western Kentucky. Through an interpreter, Singh said he felt afraid and disoriented after the crash and didn't know what would happen to him. A federal judge ordered his release in July, but he said he could not immediately return to work because authorities had kept his backpack containing his immigration papers.

César Cepeda Gomez (also referred to as Cesar Augusto Cepeda Gomez), a Venezuelan asylum seeker who delivered for Walmart in Bloomington, was detained by ICE agents in a Walmart parking lot alongside a coworker on September 1, 2026. Cepeda Gomez entered the U.S. legally through a CBP One appointment, held valid work authorization, and had an asylum hearing scheduled for October; he lives in Bloomington with his partner and her child. He was transported to the GEO Group-run North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin, Michigan, where he remained held for weeks. His attorney said he has been working, paying taxes, and has no criminal history. A federal court ruled ICE could not continue holding him without a chance to seek release, after which an immigration judge granted him a $10,000 bond, with Cepeda Gomez awaiting payment as of early October.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted 'Operation Safe Community-Indiana,' a five-day multi-agency operation from August 30 to September 3, 2026, arresting 426 people, mostly in the Indianapolis metro area. ICE said detainees included people with criminal histories involving assault, drug trafficking, fraud and identity theft, as well as alleged members of transnational gangs like MS-13, 18th Street and Tren de Aragua, but provided no case-by-case breakdown; an NPR analysis of ICE's own data found roughly 70% of those detained nationally have no criminal convictions. The operation involved 39 Indiana law enforcement agencies under the 287(g) program, following the state's FAIRNESS Act and an executive order from Gov. Mike Braun directing state cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett and Gov. Braun both said they received no advance notice. The operation disrupted daily life: a resident described witnessing a neighbor detained by unmarked SUVs, a west-side Indianapolis school's attendance dropped from 95% to as low as 40%, a Haitian market and Honduran restaurant near a Lawrence raid site reported an 80% sales decline and layoffs, and organizers canceled the Tippecanoe Latino Festival and another local Latino festival citing safety concerns.

Manuel Alejandro Nadal-Ortiz, a Venezuelan asylum seeker with a pending work permit, was detained by ICE agents on September 1 outside a Bloomington Walmart where he worked as a delivery driver for DoorDash, Uber and Walmart. He was detained alongside Cesar Augusto Cepeda Gomez, another delivery driver. His girlfriend, Joanna Hanner, said his mother called her crying within minutes of the arrest, and the family spent the day calling detention centers before Ortiz reached them by phone that afternoon from Chicago, saying he was being transferred to a jail in Michigan. Hanner said Ortiz had no criminal record beyond a paid speeding ticket, closely monitored local ICE activity to avoid it, and was saving money to support his father in Venezuela. On September 24, Ortiz filed a habeas corpus petition in federal court in Michigan, and on September 30 a judge ordered the government to show cause for his continued detention, with a response due October 5. Unlike Cepeda Gomez, whose parallel habeas case led to a bond hearing, Ortiz's case remains in earlier litigation stages.

Two men living in Bloomington with pending asylum cases were detained by ICE after a federal vehicle struck their car, according to witnesses. Details about the men's identities and the circumstances of the collision were not provided.

Milo Morales, a 27-year-old Indianapolis man, was detained by ICE agents Tuesday morning while working at an east-side job site. His sister, Dulce Morales, an active-duty servicemember, tracked his phone to a parking lot off 38th Street and confronted an ICE agent who confirmed multiple people had been taken into custody at the site but would not say if Milo was among them. Because Milo has no criminal record, he was not assigned a federal identification number, leaving his family unable to track his location. Dulce described him as a hard-working man who is soon expecting a child, and said she feels disheartened as a servicemember watching her family targeted.

A 36-year-old father who worked in a factory in Indiana and has two U.S.-citizen daughters was detained by ICE during his lunch break in early August 2026 and deported to Haiti on August 27 after the Supreme Court allowed the administration to end temporary protected status for Haitians. He fled Haiti in 2023 after criminal groups killed his parents, and he had lived and worked in the U.S. under TPS with a pending asylum application. He told a Human Rights Watch researcher he cannot return to his Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Carrefour-Feuilles: "Criminal groups control it. If I go back, they will kill me too."

Mohamed Barry, 52, a truck driver from Guinea who had lived in the U.S. for 25 years and held a withholding of removal order protecting him from deportation to his home country, was captured by Border Patrol outside his home in Brownsburg, Indiana on July 1 and later placed on a July 31 ICE charter flight to Africa carrying an estimated 71 detainees. Barry, who has five U.S. citizen children including a nine-year-old daughter, said ICE-contracted GEO Group guards drank alcohol, refused to let shackled passengers use the lavatory, and placed at least two people in restraint devices during the 26-hour flight to Sierra Leone, the Central African Republic, and Ghana. After being held under armed guard in a Ghana hotel for three days, Barry agreed to return to Guinea despite his protection order, then fled across a border into a neighboring country where he is now in hiding without identification and with a dwindling supply of heart medication. "I can't tell you how heartbroken I am leaving my younger girls," Barry said. "I'm the one who takes them to the bus stop."

A man was pulled over while driving to work and subsequently detained by ICE on an immigration hold, leading to his deportation. He is described as a devoted husband, father of three, and caregiver to his nephew whom he helped raise. He spent decades building his life in the United States and worked to support his family. His family is raising funds to cover immigration attorney costs, household expenses, and other urgent needs during this crisis.

A noncitizen was detained at Clay County Detention Center by ICE under the authority of jail commander Brandon Crowley and others. The court found that the weight of authority supports his position that ICE's detention authority derives from 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a) rather than § 1225(b), making him entitled to a bond hearing rather than subject to mandatory detention. The court granted a preliminary injunction preventing his transfer outside Illinois, Indiana, or Wisconsin during the habeas petition proceedings and ordered respondents to answer the petition within seven days.

Teodoro Vazquez-Moreno, 58, a Mexico-born resident of Evansville, was arrested by ICE following a traffic stop and held at the Clay County Justice Center in Brazil, Indiana on an immigration hold. His niece Ana Karen Gonzalez learned of his detention through a text from his son, who operates a food truck business on Evansville's East Side, and discovered her uncle in the back of a federal van outside the Evansville-Vanderburgh Civic Center while seeking information from local officials. According to family members, Vazquez-Moreno carried a valid driver's license and federal work permit at the time of arrest and had no active criminal cases; a years-old DUI case from Dubois County was the only reported scrape with the law. Vazquez-Moreno was being represented by immigration attorney Jason Flora at the time of his arrest. By Saturday, the family confirmed through a phone call that he was the person in the van and were told he would be deported to Mexico, though they received no formal removal documentation.

ICE agents conducted enforcement operations in Clark County on Wednesday and Thursday, detaining at least 28 people who are being held at Clark County Jail. The Clarksville Police Department headquarters served as a staging area for federal agents. Community members reported increased ICE presence at locations including a Home Depot parking lot in Clarksville where Latino workers typically seek employment, and immigrant services organizations said clients canceled appointments out of fear of leaving their homes. Noe Muñoz, owner of El Mañanero Breakfast Spot, closed his restaurant Thursday due to community fear after his brother was pulled over by a Corydon police officer in an unmarked vehicle on Wednesday during what appeared to be a pretextual traffic stop that resulted in no citation; Corydon, more than 20 miles from Clarksville, is reportedly the only police department in southern Indiana enrolled in a program allowing it to act on behalf of ICE. Local activism groups expressed concerns about the enforcement operation.

An Indian citizen who entered the U.S. in 2018 without inspection was detained on July 2, 2026, following a traffic stop by Indiana State Police in Indianapolis. ICE determined he was eligible for removal proceedings and issued a warrant under 8 U.S.C. § 1226. He was placed in full removal proceedings but held at Clay County Jail without receiving a bond hearing. The court granted his habeas petition, ordering the government to either provide him an individualized bond hearing before an immigration judge or release him within ten days.

Daniel Adongo, 36, a Kenyan native who became the first Kenyan-born player in the NFL after signing with the Indianapolis Colts in 2013, was deported by ICE to Kenya after years of visa overstay following his departure from the league in 2015. He was detained at the Miami Correctional Facility in Indiana before his removal. Over the following decade, Adongo was arrested multiple times for offenses including felony intimidation, battery, disorderly conduct, and criminal mischief. In 2017 he was found incompetent to stand trial and committed to a psychiatric hospital, and in 2020 he was convicted of criminal mischief and served six months in jail. His mother, Betty Adongo, and his attorneys attributed his legal troubles to mental illness and possible traumatic brain injury from his football career, with medical evaluations noting acute psychosis and potential chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). An immigration judge issued a final removal order in March 2025, and ICE carried out his deportation in June 2025.

Manuel de Jesus Montes-Lazo, an undocumented Honduran immigrant who had lived in Indiana for more than 15 years, was arrested by ICE in April 2026 while heading to wake an employee for the roofing business he owned with his wife, Joanna Garzes Lopez, a U.S. citizen. Despite being married to a U.S. citizen and in the final stages of a marriage-based green card petition, Manuel was detained at Clay County Justice Center and later transferred to a federal facility in South Texas. A 2025 Board of Immigration Appeals decision rendered him ineligible for bond release because he had crossed the border unlawfully. An immigration judge denied his cancellation of removal application—reportedly concluding that Joanna was well educated and could support the children without him—and facing months or years of appeals he could not afford, Manuel waived his appeal and was deported. With Manuel detained, Joanna said she struggled to keep the household and business running simultaneously, warning that the family risked losing their home, cars and business, which also threatened the livelihoods of their employees. Rather than remain in the United States as a single parent, Joanna, a devout Christian who values family unity, made the difficult decision to self-deport to Honduras with their two sons, Macario (6) and Jacob (4). On June 12, 2026, the family flew to Honduras with minimal belongings to reunite with Manuel and live with his family in Yorito. The move required Joanna to close their roofing business, sell their home in the Brookstone neighborhood of Indianapolis and their two cars, and uproot her children from school and friends after over a decade of building their life in the United States. Jacob has experienced bedwetting and nightmares since his father's arrest; Macario has taken on emotional weight beyond his years, feeling responsible for protecting his mother.

Selah Dine Habib, a Mauritanian national, entered the United States near the Arizona border in March 2023 and applied for asylum claiming persecution based on sexual orientation. While his asylum case was pending, he secured employment as an unarmed corrections officer at Jay County Jail in Indiana after marrying a woman and presenting employment authorization documents that passed I-9 verification and E-Verify checks. In May 2026, ICE arrested Habib after DHS investigators determined his asylum application was fraudulent, citing the contradiction between his claimed homosexual identity and his subsequent marriage to a woman. He is currently detained at Clay County Jail in Brazil, Indiana, and faces removal proceedings.

Tuan Van Bui, a 55-year-old Vietnamese national who legally entered the U.S. in 1990 under the Amerasian Homecoming Act, died on April 1, 2026, at Miami Correctional Facility in Bunker Hill, Indiana while in ICE custody. Staff found him unresponsive, initiated CPR, and called emergency services; he was pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m. His autopsy ruled the death natural, caused by hypertensive arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Bui had been ordered removed from the country by an immigration judge in 2005 and was challenging his detention through a habeas corpus petition at the time of his death. His death was the second at the facility since October 2025, prompting the ACLU of Indiana to call for transparency and advocates to organize a statewide day of action on May 16, 2026, with over 70 protesters rallying at the Allen County Courthouse in Fort Wayne.