Human Impact Project

Rutilio Zelaya Franco, a fencing industry worker who had lived in the country for 14 years without prior police trouble, was driving a delivery truck when he was pursued by ICE agents. During the chase, his truck crashed into a home; he fled on foot and turned himself in at the Loudoun County Courthouse two days later on July 24. After a judge released him on bail, Loudoun County Sheriff's Office deputies presented him with an ICE warrant, handcuffed him, and escorted him to waiting ICE agents. He is married with two children. Zelaya Franco is being held at a detention center in Cibola County, New Mexico, pending removal proceedings.

Cristian Romo-Bermejo, a former Virginia Tech student, was arrested in July 2025 following an incident while he was being treated for alcohol poisoning. He was detained by ICE due to his undocumented status and deported before his scheduled Montgomery County Circuit Court appearance on assault charges. Officials confirmed he was no longer at the Farmville Detention Center as of late 2025 and remains outside the United States, missing a subsequent court date in March 2026. Virginia Tech has confirmed he is no longer enrolled as a student.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted enforcement operations at the Chesterfield County courthouse, resulting in the arrest of undocumented immigrants. Activists and community members gathered to protest the arrests at the courthouse.

Over three days in late June, ICE detained 14 people at the Chesterfield County Courthouse while they were attending court proceedings on criminal charges. Six people were detained on June 20, six more on June 23, and two additional people on June 24, according to Chesterfield County Sheriff Karl Leonard. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin defended the detentions as part of a statewide collaboration between Virginia State Police, ICE, and other federal agencies, stating that the detainees were in the country illegally.

Claudia Alvarenga España, a Guatemalan woman living in Manassas, Virginia, with her husband Jhoan Mesen and four U.S.-born children, was taken into ICE custody on June 3, 2025, during a required check-in at an ICE office in Chantilly while pursuing withholding of removal protection. She fled Guatemala in 2010 to escape domestic abuse and human trafficking, has no criminal record, and was in compliance with her order of supervision. Despite a federal judge's order prohibiting her removal, she was deported to Guatemala on June 10 but returned to the U.S. the next day after a Guatemalan official informed her of a pending hearing. She has since requested voluntary deportation and remains in ICE detention in Texas with no clear timeline for processing her request. Unable to endure continued family separation, her husband announced in mid-June that the family has decided to voluntarily leave the United States and relocate to Costa Rica to reunite with her, ending their 15-year residence, and has begun preparations to sell their home.

ICE agents detained approximately 10 men outside an immigration court in Sterling, Virginia. Video recorded by activists shows an ICE agent grabbing one activist and knocking a phone out of another's hand while they were filming the detention operation.

Luis Miguel Lopez-Ramos, a Guatemalan national previously deported from the United States following a 2011 Texas drug conviction, was detained by ICE after being booked into Fairfax County Adult Detention Center on a DWI charge. He is charged with illegal reentry after removal following a felony conviction, a federal immigration offense. Court records show he made his initial appearance before a federal magistrate judge and was detained pending a detention hearing.

Jensy Machado, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was detained by ICE agents on March 5, 2025, while driving to work in Manassas. The agents were searching for another man with a deportation order who had provided Machado's home address. Machado was handcuffed and questioned about his immigration status before being released after showing his driver's license.

Flora, a Venezuelan trafficking survivor with an active asylum claim and pending T visa application, was detained by ICE on January 30, 2025, at a routine check-in appointment after reporting her alleged trafficker to federal authorities. She was transported 1,200 miles to a detention center in Louisiana and separated from her 4-year-old son and 18-month-old daughter for two months. Flora had fled her alleged abuser in early 2025 with help from a local nonprofit and was in the process of obtaining a T visa for trafficking survivors when ICE detained her. She was released on April 2, 2025, hours before a court hearing on her habeas corpus petition, but the detention caused significant retraumatization to her and her children.