Human Impact Project

A Salvadoran citizen who received withholding of removal in 2024 and was released on supervision was detained without warning on June 12, 2026, when he reported to the Baltimore ICE Field Office as directed. ICE revoked his release and prepared removal documents intending to deport him to Mexico without following required procedural safeguards or providing notice and opportunity to be heard. The court granted his habeas corpus petition, finding ICE violated due process and the Accardi doctrine by failing to follow its own regulations, and ordered his immediate release on the previous supervision conditions.

Jesus Acevedo-Sanchez was detained by ICE agents on June 11, 2026, at Commodore John Rodgers Elementary/Middle School in Southeast Baltimore during a preschool graduation ceremony. When agents attempted to arrest him, Acevedo-Sanchez refused lawful commands and violently resisted, using his vehicle to evade law enforcement and dragging an ICE officer in the process. He faces federal charges for resisting and impeding federal officers and destruction of government property. Children who were in the vehicle were removed and cared for by family members, while school staff secured other children in the building. Acevedo-Sanchez has a history of evading ICE, including a prior collision with an ICE vehicle in April 2026. He is being held at a Baltimore detention facility. Two undocumented immigrants were detained by ICE agents at Commodore John Rodgers Elementary/Middle School during a school graduation ceremony on June 11, 2026. The individuals were pursued by ICE agents and drove into the school parking lot with children in the vehicle. During the detention, one individual punched federal officers and faces federal charges for assaulting a federal officer. The arrests resulted in children being separated from their parents and caused distress among those present. School officials and state leaders condemned the enforcement action at the sensitive location.

A U.S. citizen leaving a coffee shop in Annapolis was handcuffed by federal immigration agents, denied permission to make a phone call, and held for nearly two hours. DHS said agents moved the person elsewhere for questioning because "agitators" had gathered at the location.

A Romanian citizen, 52, who underwent multiple heart surgeries including an emergency triple bypass in April 2025, was arrested in July 2025 and required 16 daily medications as part of his recovery. While at an ICE field office in Baltimore, he went two days without any medication before being transferred to a New Jersey facility. Despite numerous requests from treatment providers, the detention center did not provide all 16 medications; medical records show he received only eight after his second hospital release. He was hospitalized three times while detained for chest pain related to non-compliance with his medication regimen, and in August 2025, he suffered a stroke while on a video call with his daughter.

Miguel was arrested by masked, unidentified ICE agents in front of his home after a grocery store trip. He has been detained over 1,000 miles away from his family and has not been seen since. His wife Beatriz is caring for their four children (ages 7 months, 8, 9, and 15) while fighting for his release and managing steep legal costs. Miguel is experiencing emotional trauma, fear of deportation, and respiratory illness from detention conditions.

Oso, a Pomeranian, was left at a shelter after his family was deported by ICE in Prince George's County, Maryland during the current administration's mass deportation enforcement. The dog was surrendered with only his name on his collar and no explanation. Since mass deportation enforcement ramped up in early 2025, animal welfare groups across the country report a surge in pets abandoned or surrendered by deported families, with some rescues taking in three times as many animals as they did a year ago.

Oscar, a 32-year-old Honduran environmental activist who had fled death threats, was arrested at an ICE check-in appointment and moved to a Texas detention facility before being deported to Honduras. His wife Ana and their 7- and 9-year-old children were granted asylum and remained in Maryland. Oscar's lawyer filed a petition for him to rejoin his family, but processing faces dramatic delays. Oscar remains in hiding in Honduras, staying alone in an apartment and avoiding going outside. When he calls his children, he tells them he didn't leave them by choice.

Marco, a 61-year-old man who had lived in the U.S. for nearly 40 years and owned a contracting business, was arrested at a Home Depot in Maryland, detained for three months, and deported to El Salvador after an immigration judge dismissed his request for humanitarian relief. His 17-year-old son Mark, a U.S. citizen, struggled with depression and falling grades while taking on extra work and responsibilities to support his mother, who works at Burger King. Last week Mark graduated high school in Maryland, with Marco watching the ceremony via livestream instead of attending in person.

Zoila Guerra Sandoval, mother of a child whose father José Mynor López died in the 2024 Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore, faces deportation proceedings under the Trump administration. López was one of six construction workers killed when a cargo vessel hit the bridge. The Biden administration had provided immigration protections to about 30 people with immediate connections to the victims, but those protections are being withdrawn under the current administration.

A Dominican man was deported from Baltimore after his family paid approximately $9,000 to a fraudulent individual posing as an immigration attorney. The family believed they were paying to resolve the man's legal status, but the money was lost to fraud. When the irregularity was discovered, the immigration proceedings collapsed and the man was deported.

Security camera footage captured immigration agents detaining a person at a gas station in Easton, Maryland while the person was fueling a vehicle. The detention occurred in broad daylight in a public space.

A 56-year-old Colombian citizen who had been granted withholding of removal was detained without a warrant by ICE officers in Baltimore on March 31, 2026, when he reported for a scheduled check-in. He had been complying with supervised release and had a home visit scheduled for April 1, but ICE instructed him to report in-person on March 31 instead. The court granted his temporary restraining order motion and ordered his immediate release, finding ICE violated his due process rights. A second man was placed in removal proceedings in August 2023 and charged with inadmissibility for entering the United States without inspection. He was released from immigration custody on an Order of Recognizance but was subsequently arrested by immigration authorities and is currently detained at the Adelanto ICE Detention Facility. The court granted his temporary restraining order requiring an individualized bond hearing within seven days.

Yousef Azizi, an Iranian researcher, journalist, and Virginia Tech PhD candidate who lived in the U.S. for 13 years with valid legal status, was arrested in a pre-dawn operation outside his Maryland home on April 13 shortly after dropping his children off at school, with more than ten FBI vehicles involved and agents pointing rifles at him before he was taken to a detention center in Baltimore. During three months in custody, interrogators repeatedly questioned him over an unsubstantiated claim that he had belonged to the Student Basij Organization during his first master's degree, invoking the U.S. government's 2019 terrorist designation of the IRGC, though he said authorities never presented evidence despite several court hearings. He was then shackled and transferred over six days from Maryland to Louisiana, Arizona, and California, including two nights in a freezing Arizona facility with 30 others that he said caused serious health deterioration, a process he attributed partly to the business practices of private detention contractors; a judge denied bond despite 250 pages of support letters from professors at the University of Michigan, Harvard, Virginia Tech, and other institutions. Azizi, a regular media commentator critical of U.S. and Israeli foreign policy, said an FBI agent twice threatened his wife, and he ultimately took a voluntary return to Iran, where he hopes to defend his dissertation remotely.

Yousof Azizi, a 40-year-old Iranian PhD candidate at Virginia Tech, was detained by Homeland Security Investigations agents outside his Germantown, Maryland home on April 13 and transferred to an immigration detention facility in Arizona. His wife denies DHS allegations that he lied on his student visa application about membership in Iran's Student Basij Organization and claims his visa status issue was a pretext, asserting he was speaking publicly about U.S.-Iran relations based on his academic research.

On April 2, 2026, ICE officers in Baltimore, Maryland attempted to arrest Ever Omar Alvarenga-Rios, a Honduran national with a final order of removal. During the enforcement action, Alvarenga drove recklessly through city streets, causing a multi-car pileup, then fled on foot. The arrest resulted in injuries to two ICE officers and Alvarenga, all of whom were hospitalized. Alvarenga remained hospitalized on April 5, and his attorney reported being denied access to him while in custody.

Ever Alvarenga Rios, a 32-year-old Honduran immigrant represented for eight years by attorney Adam Crandell in his bid for citizenship, was injured when an ICE vehicle allegedly rear-ended his van Thursday morning in Baltimore as he drove to his flooring job. He suffered a concussion, an arm injury requiring a cast, and other injuries to his head, chest, back, and hands, and was hospitalized at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. His wife, Lurbin Vasquez, said he has no criminal record and runs his own flooring business, and that she has not spoken with him since Thursday. Crandell said he was denied access to his client on both Thursday and Friday, and Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott and Sen. Chris Van Hollen have both publicly criticized the incident, which followed a separate ICE-involved crash in Annapolis earlier the same week.

ICE agents detained six Guatemalan workers, ages 18-40, while they were doing roofing and remodeling work at a home in Cambridge, Maryland, after traveling from Glen Burnie for the job. Coworker Bryan Polanco, a Dominican national with permanent residency who was not detained, livestreamed about 30 minutes of the arrest, saying agents were "hurting working people — people who do good for the country," and in a driveway confrontation told the homeowner, a self-described retired Marine, "You don't have to have hate in your heart... Live for them. Spread love." The wife of one detained worker, five months pregnant and caring for two children, said, "I feel so sad, desperate for my husband... we are here to move forward, not to do harm." Online claims alleged homeowner Karen Trevino called ICE to avoid paying roughly $10,000 owed for the job and was later arrested and charged, but Maryland court records showed no evidence of arrest or charges against Trevino or her father, and both ICE and Trevino denied anyone at the property contacted immigration authorities; Trevino said she received threats afterward, and Cambridge police said they would maintain increased presence near the home. ICE separately told reporters the arrests resulted from a targeted enforcement operation rather than a tip, claiming several of the men had prior removal orders and one had a prior reentry conviction, and that the workers resisted and attempted to flee before being detained. No charges have been filed in connection with the incident, and the crew's work van was left unsecured at the property after the men were taken.

Reza Zavvar, a 52-year-old Iranian green card holder who came to the U.S. as a student 40 years ago, was detained by ICE agents on June 28, 2025, while walking his dog near his Gaithersburg, Maryland home. Zavvar was granted withholding of removal to Iran in 2007 and has lived and worked legally in the U.S. for decades. He is currently held in a detention center in Texas and faces deportation. His family and attorney say they do not understand the legal basis for his detention. His case occurred as part of a surge in arrests of Iranian immigrants under the Trump administration's hardline immigration policies.

Six Guatemalan workers were detained by ICE agents at a home in Cambridge, Maryland, after the homeowner allegedly called immigration authorities on them while they were fixing her roof. The incident was livestreamed by coworker Bryan Polanco, a Dominican national with permanent residency, who accused the homeowner of calling ICE and handing agents a ladder to reach the workers. According to reports, the homeowner owed the workers $10,000 and allegedly threatened to call ICE again if they returned to finish the job.

Jackson Kabut Gichema, a 48-year-old Kenyan national, was arrested by ICE on March 24, 2026, and ordered deported following a conviction in Baltimore County. Gichema entered the United States legally on a visitor's visa in 2003 but remained without legal status after his authorization expired. A 2011 Maryland Court of Special Appeals decision upheld his conviction, triggering mandatory deportation proceedings as the offense qualifies as an aggravated felony under U.S. immigration law.