Human Impact Project

A 16-year-old boy named Diego had both parents taken in separate ICE raids. After being released from ICE custody, Diego's mother Yolanda shared her account of the experience. The incident was originally covered in November of the previous year.

MJMA, a 45-year-old farm worker and lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit, was detained in a van stop by ICE agents who smashed the vehicle's windows without waiting for occupants to comply with commands. Body-camera footage shows MJMA asserting her right to remain silent and requesting a lawyer in Spanish, while an officer broke her phone as she called 911. Agents used facial recognition software to scan her face multiple times, obtaining inaccurate matches—one incorrectly identifying her as "Maria"—and falsely claiming she entered the country unlawfully when she had actually arrived with a valid temporary visa. A federal judge ruled the arrests unlawful and unjustified, finding officers engaged in misconduct, made inaccurate statements in reports, and improperly used facial recognition technology without warrants. MJMA has an ongoing asylum case.

A 45-year-old Mexican citizen who entered legally in January 2025 and overstayed her visa was arrested on her way to work. At the Portland ICE facility, an officer forced her to sign a rights waiver form in Spanish without allowing her to consult a lawyer, telling her that refusing voluntary removal would take a very long time. The form waived her right to an immigration court hearing despite her intention to seek asylum. Within hours, ICE shackled her and transferred her to Tacoma, Washington, before her attorneys could properly advise her.

M-J-M-A, a 45-year-old Mexican citizen who entered the U.S. legally in January 2025 and overstayed her visa, was arrested on October 30, 2025 on her way to work. An ICE officer pressured her to sign a document she did not understand, in Spanish, that waived her right to an immigration court hearing and requested voluntary removal. The officer told her that refusing would delay her departure. When her attorney met with her approximately three hours later, they had only about 10 minutes before the meeting was ended. She was then transferred to Tacoma, Washington and shackled on a bus, with no attorneys able to meet with her for approximately two days afterward.

Five plainclothes federal agents arrested a 26-year-old barber from Venezuela at Rockstar Fadez barbershop in Brighton Park. One agent had posed as a construction worker and customer earlier that morning without identifying himself as law enforcement. The agents threw the barber to the ground and carried him away in a pickup truck while threatening to detain anyone who intervened, and no warrant was presented before the arrest.

Jhonatan Bello Cabrera, an 18-year-old Colombian national, was detained during an immigration raid at the Savino del Bene warehouse in Woodbridge, New Jersey, while in the process of obtaining permanent residency through his U.S. citizen stepfather and legal permanent resident mother. He was transferred to detention facilities in New Jersey, Texas and Arizona before being released in December after posting a $6,000 bond and being fitted with an ankle monitor. His mother, Sandra Suero, said she never expected the arrest, calling him "a newly graduated kid, still a child."

Killy Tatiana Yangquen García, a 21-year-old Colombian woman who came to the U.S. at age 10, was arrested at the Savino del Bene bonded warehouse in Woodbridge, New Jersey, during an immigration raid in which more than 50 agents from multiple federal agencies, including a helicopter, detained 46 workers. After nearly four months in detention, including transfers across multiple states, an immigration judge denied her bond and she accepted a voluntary departure, returning to Bogotá in February. Her mother, María Eugenia García, has been living in hiding in Elizabeth, New Jersey, since the raid and says she has struggled to cope with the separation, speaking with her daughter only by video call, while Yangquen García's husband, who is applying for U.S. citizenship, hopes to eventually sponsor her return.

George Retes, a disabled American combat veteran, was detained for three days without access to a lawyer or ability to contact family during a July 2025 immigration raid on a Camarillo, California cannabis farm where he worked as a security guard. Agents broke his car window, pepper sprayed him, and tackled him, leaving him with a cut leg and pepper-spray burns; he was released without charges and missed his daughter's third birthday. In February 2026, represented by the Institute for Justice, Retes filed a lawsuit against the federal government over his detention, and he has since testified before Congress about the incident. The same raid resulted in more than 300 arrests, the removal of 14 children, and the death of farmworker Jaime Alanis Garcia, whose family has filed a $47 million wrongful death claim against ICE.

Alexa Ramírez, 38, a Mexican national who had been living and working in Chicago, was arrested during Operation Midway Blitz at the Swap-O-Rama market in October 2025, just eight days after marrying her husband Alexander Villeda. She was held for four days at the Broadview federal immigration processing center, where she signed a form agreeing to self-deport. She was deported to Mexico two days later and is now living on her parents' farm in Oaxaca, unable to reunite with her husband who remains detained in Michigan.

On October 15, 2025, ICE agents conducted a raid at a car wash in Hamden, Connecticut, detaining between seven and eight people. Among those detained were parents of school-age children. Witnesses reported seeing masked agents in tactical gear and unmarked vehicles; one person was slammed to the ground and another was placed in an unmarked van. An agent allegedly threatened a witness who inquired about detainees. Hamden's mayor, town council president, state legislators, and immigrant rights advocates held a press conference that afternoon to express concern about the raid and family separations.

A long-time employee of Hojas Tea House was detained Tuesday morning while taking out the trash at its Wilmington location, according to a post the concept shared on its Instagram account. According to the post, Eloy was part of Hojas Tea House for 12 years.

Five people were detained during a raid on September 13, 2025 at 9:55 AM in Long Beach at 577 E Wardlow Rd. The detained individuals included migrants, citizens, and legal residents. Carwash owners and construction site operators were advised to install protective fencing around their work sites and properties.

Drumgoon Dairy, a 6,500-cow operation near Lake Norden co-owned by Rodney and Dorothy Elliott, lost 38 of its roughly 50 employees after a federal Department of Homeland Security audit at the end of May 2025. The department said the workers had inaccurate, outdated, or incomplete documentation of citizenship or work authorization; one employee left after his visa expired and another resigned. Many of the affected workers had been with the dairy for years, some nearly two decades, helping build its operation since it began relying on immigrant labor in 2006. The farm, which had never been audited in its history, was left with 16 employees after the terminations.

On February 7, 2025, ICE officers arrested 12 employees at El Potro Mexican Restaurant in Liberty, Missouri while searching for a registered sex offender. A federal judge ruled that 11 of the arrests were unlawful, finding that ICE lacked probable cause to justify warrantless arrests and violated a legal settlement agreement requiring probable cause that a person is likely to escape before making such arrests in the Midwest region. The judge found that the restaurant owner was not informed that employees had the option to refuse speaking with agents. The National Immigrant Justice Center brought the case challenging the raids. The federal judge extended the terms of the settlement agreement through February 2026.

Panchos Tacos in Mount Vernon, Ohio closed after a Homeland Security Investigations operation at the restaurant on Oct. 9, 2025. City officials said they were not told about the operation in advance and later learned it was conducted by HSI rather than ICE. The restaurant announced in November it planned to reopen and was hiring new staff, and it officially reopened on March 3, 2026, thanking the community for its support.

Willian Giménez González, who is suing a group of off-duty police officers for harassment and abuse of day laborers at a Home Depot in Chicago, was detained and taken into ICE custody. His lawyer states the timing suggests the detention may be related to his lawsuit.

Francisco Miranda, a U.S. citizen born in California, was arrested by ICE agents outside his workplace in Milwaukie, Oregon. While being detained, Miranda repeatedly told agents he was born in California, but they questioned his claim and took him into custody. Miranda recorded part of his arrest before agents confiscated his cellphone. His attorney, Michael Fuller, characterized the arrest as an illegal abduction. Miranda appears to be the first known U.S. citizen arrested by ICE in Oregon this year.

Gratien Milandou-Wamba, a 32-year-old corrections officer at the Cumberland County Jail, was detained by ICE on April 19, 2025, while driving to work. He had fled torture and political persecution in the Republic of Congo, entered the U.S. lawfully in May 2023 on a visitor's visa, and obtained a work permit while his asylum application was pending, allowing him to be hired as a corrections officer in August 2024 after passing a background screening. ICE cited his expired visa as grounds for detention, though his attorney said Milandou-Wamba believed he was in legal status while awaiting his asylum decision, and suggested an attempted firearm purchase in September 2024 may have flagged his status to immigration authorities. Cumberland County District Attorney Jackie Sartoris publicly defended him as an upstanding community member, and his friend and landlord, Tyler Brinkmann, described him as kind and gentle and involved in his church. He left his corrections officer position on May 31, 2025, while remaining in ICE custody at Strafford County Department of Corrections in New Hampshire, fearing imprisonment or death if deported to Congo. A federal judge denied him bail citing flight risk, a decision he is appealing, with his asylum hearing scheduled for October 2025.

Giovanni, a 48-year-old car wash worker in the San Fernando Valley, was detained in October 2025 along with three coworkers during a federal immigration raid. Unlike his coworkers who were deported to Mexico within 24 hours, Giovanni refused to sign voluntary departure documents and was held at Adelanto ICE Processing Center for six months rather than return to El Salvador. His detention left his wife Maria and school-age children without his primary income.

Amanda Ungaro, a 41-year-old Brazilian former model who lived in the U.S. for over 20 years, was arrested in June 2025 on fraud charges related to unlicensed cosmetic procedures at a wellness center in Florida. She was detained for approximately three and a half months at ICE facilities in Miami and Louisiana before being deported to Brazil in October 2025. Ungaro alleges that her ex-partner Paolo Zampolli, a Trump special envoy and father of their teenage son, contacted senior ICE officials to ensure her detention and deportation amid an ongoing child custody dispute. Zampolli and the Department of Homeland Security denied the allegations, with DHS stating the removal was based on visa overstay and fraud charges. The case remains open with an arrest warrant issued should she return to the United States.