Human Impact Project

ICE agents arrested an undocumented father while he was taking his 15-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter, both U.S. citizens, to school in New Jersey. According to witnesses and the family, agents asked the boy to call a relative but drove away before anyone arrived, leaving the two minors unattended on the roadside. The incident violates ICE policy and DHS directives requiring agents to remain on scene until a third party assumes physical custody of minor children.

A 42-year-old Guatemalan man who has lived in the United States since 2004 was detained by ICE on March 13, 2026, while attending a court hearing for the dismissal of a criminal offense. He is engaged to a U.S. citizen and is the father of three U.S. citizens. Following his detention, he was transferred to the San Bernardino Sub Office and held at Adelanto Detention Facility. On March 31, 2026, he filed a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus seeking immediate release or a bond hearing within seven days, raising claims of unlawful denial of a bond hearing under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a), violation of Fifth Amendment due process rights, and violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. On April 13, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California granted his Petition for Temporary Restraining Order, finding that he is entitled to an individualized bond hearing as a member of the Bond Eligible Class established in Bautista v. Santacruz. The court ordered respondents to either provide evidence that he received a bond hearing or release him from custody within 48 hours, with no release restrictions such as electronic monitoring unless deemed necessary at a future bond hearing.

A 14-year-old Brazilian national was detained by ICE agents in Marlborough, Massachusetts on March 10, 2026, during an operation targeting suspected gang members. She was transferred to a juvenile detention facility in New York without following proper legal procedures. A federal judge ordered her immediate release on March 12, 2026, finding the detention and out-of-state transfer violated constitutional protections and questioning why she was not turned over to state child welfare authorities instead. She was reunited with her aunt and uncle in Massachusetts but received a notice to appear in immigration court and now faces deportation to Brazil. Her attorney plans to challenge the deportation and petition for special immigrant juvenile status.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado granted a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the case of Luis Alfredo Chavelas Rosas, a Mexican citizen detained by ICE on July 16, 2025, in Aurora, Colorado. The court ruled that the detainee was improperly detained under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A) without a bond hearing and determined that the default rule under § 1226(a) applies, requiring the government to provide a bond hearing. The court concluded that § 1225(b)(2)(A) does not authorize detention for noncitizens who have been present in the country for years and are not actively seeking admission.

On March 9, 2026, ICE detained and deported two 12-year-old twin sisters who are U.S. citizens born in Orlando, Florida, after their mother attended a scheduled immigration appointment at an ICE facility. ICE invoked a "family unity" policy to take the children into custody and deport them to Guatemala. The mother had previously submitted paperwork requesting the children remain with their grandmother, though ICE stated she verbally requested to take them with her. A federal court granted a habeas corpus petition filed by the grandmother, ordering the children's immediate return to the United States at ICE's expense and restraining ICE from rearresting them.

Leonardo Espartaco Martinez, a U.S. citizen and community watcher with VC Defensa in Ventura County, was violently detained by ICE agents on March 10 after responding to aid a fellow community patroller who had been pepper-sprayed on Buyers Street in Simi Valley. Video footage shows agents in four vehicles blocking and ramming Martinez's minivan as he tried to reverse away, with one agent emerging with an assault rifle raised; a photographer identified an emblem on an agent's hat matching one worn by an agent at a prior protest at the Metropolitan Detention Center. Simi Valley police also arrived and sought to question Martinez about the collision, but he requested legal counsel before speaking; agents then broke his window and dragged him out as he held his arms out to be handcuffed, injuring his knees, shoulders, and wrists. He was treated and later discharged from Los Robles Regional Medical Center around noon, and his minivan was impounded. This marks the third time ICE agents have rammed Martinez's vehicle; a previous incident on October 16, 2025, in Oxnard also led to his detention and transfer to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles.

Rogelio, a 39-year-old Guatemalan immigrant married to a U.S. citizen with five U.S.-born children, was detained by ICE for seven months after being stopped by local police in La Belle, Florida. He spent over six months at the Broward Transitional Center in deportation proceedings. A judge approved his cancellation of removal application, allowing him to pursue citizenship and a green card. Approximately 4,000 cancellations of removal are granted nationally each year.

A Yemeni national with Temporary Protected Status and father of four U.S. citizen children was detained by ICE on March 6, 2026, three days after his TPS status expired on March 3, 2026. He owns a car dealership in Birmingham, Alabama and his wife is a U.S. citizen pregnant with their fifth child. The court denied his motion for temporary restraining order seeking immediate release from detention.

Orlin Carrasco, 29, was detained by ICE agents on March 4, 2026, inside Robertson County Courthouse after appearing before a judge on traffic charges. Carrasco had entered the U.S. as an unaccompanied minor at age 17 to flee gang recruitment in Honduras. At the time of his detention, he had an active asylum case, a valid work permit, a driver's license, and was married to a U.S. citizen. He has been held in a Louisiana detention facility for over three months without a clear explanation or active deportation order. His attorney argues ICE is illegally detaining him under a void document and that his 2013 administratively closed case does not support mandatory detention.

A Laotian refugee who entered the United States in 1988 as a child refugee and was adjusted to lawful permanent resident status was detained by ICE on March 3, 2026, when he reported to the ICE office in Portland, Oregon. He was taken to the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington. He has a U.S. citizen spouse, one child, and four step-children. A final removal order to Laos was entered on January 5, 2012, but he had been released on Orders of Supervision since May 2015 based on nonremovability. On January 8, 2026, his spouse filed an I-130 Petition for Alien Relative. He was served with a Notice of Revocation of Release citing changed circumstances making removal reasonably foreseeable. On April 10, 2026, ICE obtained a Laissez-Passer from Laos valid for 90 days. He filed a habeas corpus petition and motion for temporary restraining order seeking to prevent his removal and transfer pending the court's consideration of his case. On May 1, 2026, the federal magistrate judge denied his motion, finding he had not shown a likelihood of success on the merits because ICE had obtained a valid travel document establishing an unchallenged basis for his detention.

Irvi Cruz, an undocumented Mexican national married to Rachel, a U.S. citizen public school teacher, decided to self-deport to Mexico with their two U.S.-born daughters after the 2024 presidential election. Despite building a life in New York over nearly two decades, including home ownership and stable employment, the family chose to leave voluntarily due to the political climate and deportation threats. Irvi departed first in early 2025 before Trump took office, with Rachel and the girls planning to follow after the school year.

Masked federal agents pulled over Willy Wender Aceituno Medina, a Honduras-born U.S. citizen, and forced him from his vehicle. The incident was posted on Instagram by Democracy Now, a news organization.

Daphy Michel, a 31-year-old Haitian asylum seeker who arrived at the southern border in 2022, died from hypothermia on March 2, 2026, after being released by ICE on February 27 or 28, 2026, under the Alternatives to Detention Program with an electronic ankle monitor. Michel had spent six months in Washington County Correctional Facility awaiting a preliminary hearing on misdemeanor charges stemming from an arrest for yelling due to untreated severe mental health issues. After her release, she was taken approximately 25 miles away to Pittsburgh and left at a bus shelter in sub-freezing temperatures (20–30°F) while wearing summer clothes, where she spent 24 to 30 hours alone before being found unresponsive. The Allegheny County Medical Examiner ruled her death a homicide. Her family plans to sue the U.S. government and other entities, alleging ICE failed to account for her severe vulnerability, including untreated mental health conditions and significant language barriers.

On January 7, 2026, ICE agent Jonathan Ross fatally shot Renée Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen, queer mother of three, and writer, in Minneapolis during a large-scale immigration enforcement operation called Operation Metro Surge. Good was in her vehicle when ICE agents approached; as she drove away, Ross fired shots through the windshield, striking her multiple times. Bystander and cell phone footage contradicted federal claims that Good had used her vehicle as a weapon. The shooting sparked national protests and investigations. Good's death, along with the killing of Alex Pretti within the same two-week period, contributed to the removal and demotion of Border Patrol Commander-at-large Gregory Bovino and the firing of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem in March 2026.

Alisa Ramdial Shahib, a 46-year-old from Trinidad and Tobago who immigrated to the U.S. at age 19, has been detained by ICE at Chase County Detention Center since March 2026. Despite being granted a withholding of removal under the Convention Against Torture by a federal judge—a legal protection that bars her deportation to Trinidad and Tobago due to fears of persecution—DHS continues to detain her while searching for a third country willing to accept her. Shahib is separated from her U.S. citizen husband Secah, a PGA golf instructor, and her two children, one of whom is attending college. Over her decades in the U.S., she worked in modeling and commercial cleaning. Prior drug trafficking convictions prevent her from pursuing legal status. She communicates with her family through drawings mailed from detention while dealing with undisclosed medical issues, and her family remains uncertain about her final destination.

Seamus Culleton, an Irish national who has lived in the U.S. for nearly 20 years and is married to U.S. citizen Tiffany Smith, was arrested by ICE agents at a hardware store in Boston on September 9, 2025, during a random immigration sweep. Culleton entered the country in 2009 on a visa waiver and overstayed, but held a valid work permit tied to a pending green card application as the spouse of a citizen and has no criminal record. He was detained for roughly six months across facilities in Massachusetts, New York, and Texas, including El Paso Camp East Montana, where he and his attorney reported overcrowding, inadequate food, lack of outdoor time, unsanitary conditions, and significant weight loss. A judge approved his release on bond in November 2025, but ICE continued to detain him after claiming he had signed deportation documents, a claim Culleton and his lawyer dispute due to documentation irregularities. His prolonged detention caused him to miss a critical green card interview. In March 2026, a U.S. Court of Appeals judge paused his deportation pending resolution of his petition for review.

A federal judge ruled that at least 32 people arrested during Operation Midway Blitz, a major ICE enforcement action in the Chicago area between June 2025 and October 2025, had their arrests violated a 2022 consent decree governing warrantless apprehensions. Among those improperly arrested were Jose Miguel Jimenez and Jeickson Delgado Avila, undocumented immigrants detained during a September 29 raid on an apartment building at 75th and South Shore Drive when ICE agents rappelled from helicopters and broke down doors. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings found the arrests lacked sufficient probable cause that individuals were flight risks, as required by the Castañon Nava consent decree, and that agents provided no justification for their assessments. Of the 32 improperly arrested, 11 are believed to still be in detention, 11 have left the country, and 10 have been released under various conditions. The judge also rejected a recent agency directive that sought to give immigration agents more discretion to make warrantless arrests.

Yoshi Cuenca Villamar, a 23-year-old U.S. citizen and landscaper from Charlotte, was tackled by immigration agents while working during warrantless enforcement operations across North Carolina in late 2025. Villamar is one of five plaintiffs—four U.S. citizens and a visa holder—who filed a federal class-action lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina on February 28, 2026, against the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, CBP, and USBP. The lawsuit alleges the agencies conducted unlawful warrantless arrests without probable cause during and after Operation Charlotte's Web. ICE arrested 3,304 people in North Carolina between January and October 2025, more than 2.8 times the total during the same period in 2024. The lawsuit seeks to declare the warrantless arrest policy unlawful and block the agencies from continuing such arrests.

Elaina Aghayeva, an Azerbaijani national and senior neuroscience researcher at Columbia University, was detained by Department of Homeland Security agents at a university residential building on February 26-27, 2026. DHS agents entered without a warrant and falsely claimed to be searching for a missing child. DHS stated Aghayeva's student visa had been terminated in 2016 for failing to attend classes, though her attorney and the university stated she was a current student in good standing. After approximately nine hours in custody, Aghayeva was released following intervention by NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who met with President Trump regarding the case. Aghayeva's attorney filed a habeas corpus petition in federal court, and the detention prompted student protests at Columbia University.

Willy Wender Aceituno, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Honduran descent who has lived in Charlotte, North Carolina for over 25 years, was arrested by ICE and DHS agents in November 2025 without a warrant. During the encounter, agents smashed his truck window with a baton and forcibly removed him from the vehicle despite him showing them his REAL ID confirming his citizenship. When Aceituno began filming the agents on his phone, they threw him onto the broken glass, handcuffed him, and transported him approximately two miles away before releasing him bleeding on the side of the road. The incident triggered childhood trauma from witnessing his father's arrest and disappearance by the Honduran military. In February 2026, Aceituno filed a $1.25 million lawsuit against federal immigration authorities alleging violations of constitutional amendments and claims of assault, battery, false imprisonment, and negligent supervision. Aceituno is the lead plaintiff in a federal class-action lawsuit with the ACLU alleging that ICE and CBP agents made warrantless arrests without probable cause across North Carolina.