Human Impact Project

Ángelo Mejía Meléndez, a 27-year-old Venezuelan, was deported from the U.S. on June 24, 2026, as part of a group of approximately 145-146 Venezuelans. He had been building a life in Miami, working at a pier, where his employer valued his work so highly that they named a new Jet Ski after him. In a recent voice note to his mother, he expressed deep love for her, saying "If I were to be born again, I would want you to be my mother." Hours after landing in Caracas, while being processed in a guarded hotel in La Guaira, powerful twin earthquakes struck and the building collapsed, killing him. His family identified his body by a distinctive pizza tattoo on his arm. His best friend Georgelyss Montes, whom he had said goodbye to four years earlier when he left for the U.S., learned of his death after searching hospitals and morgues. His mother did not learn of his death until days after the earthquakes, when a survivor informed her he had not survived.

Artyom Vovchenko, a 27-year-old Russian who deserted the military in 2022 in opposition to the war in Ukraine, was deported back to Russia by the Trump administration last summer after spending 13 months in three U.S. detention centers and being denied asylum. After his return to Russia, where he faced potential imprisonment or forced deployment to Ukraine, Vovchenko escaped again and crossed into Belarus earlier this year. He is now in an undisclosed country attempting to start a new life.

Eight children from three South Florida families, including a one-year-old, departed Miami International Airport for Guatemala City to reunite with relatives after their parents were deported or chose to leave the country. Three of the children are U.S. citizens. The Guatemalan-Maya Center, which has aided families for over 30 years, coordinated travel logistics, provided chaperones and packed backpacks with toys and snacks for the children's first flight without their parents. The center said it has now flown 45 children to Latin America since the immigration crackdown began, after first stepping in following a February 2025 raid in Palm Beach County.

Leidys Barrabi, a 25-year-old Cuban mother, revealed on Instagram that she received a deportation order after four years in the United States. Barrabi built a beauty salon, Heaven's Spa Miami, from scratch and established a stable life for her daughter and family. In a video posted June 25, 2026, she expressed disbelief at the order but stated she would continue fighting and believes God has control of her life. The post garnered over 757,000 views and thousands of supportive comments from followers urging her to appeal.

Lisbeth Portillo, 58, was deported to Venezuela on June 24, 2026, on Flight 164 carrying approximately 146 people. She was housed at Hotel Santuario La Llanada with over 100 other recently deported Venezuelans, in a second-floor room with 16 other women. Twin earthquakes measuring 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude struck hours after her arrival, causing the building to collapse. Portillo was buried under a beam but escaped the rubble, surviving with bruises covering her body. She was reunited with her children the following night. Portillo had crossed the U.S. border in November 2021 with a pending asylum claim and had lived in South Florida for more than four years before her deportation.

Anderson Daniel Salcedo, 22, a construction worker who had lived in the U.S. for three years, was deported to Venezuela on June 24, 2026 via Flight 164. Upon arrival, he was taken to Hotel Santuario La Llanada in La Guaira for processing. Twin earthquakes struck hours later, collapsing the hotel. Salcedo was trapped in the rubble for 40 hours without access to his phone or documents—which had been withheld by authorities—leaving his family unable to locate or contact him during the crisis. He was rescued and admitted to Caracas's university hospital, where both of his legs were amputated due to his injuries.

Julio Irungaray Sr., who lived in Utah for more than 35 years and worked two jobs at a Mexican restaurant and movie theater while supporting his household, was deported to Guadalajara within days of his June 24 detention by ICE. He has since relocated to Durango, where he grew up, reconnected with relatives, joined a local soccer league, and begun searching for work. Supporters raised more than $22,000 through a GoFundMe campaign to help his family, who are now exploring legal options that could allow his return to the United States.

A father and asylum seeker was detained by ICE at MetLife Stadium while attending a FIFA Club World Cup final with his children on July 13, 2025. Local police questioned him about flying a small drone in the parking lot—a civil violation typically resulting in a fine—and asked about his immigration status, leading to his transfer to ICE agents. He spent three months in immigration detention before his asylum claim was denied. He was subsequently deported to his country of origin, which he said he had fled in 2022 due to threats from armed groups. He has since warned immigrant World Cup fans about the risks of attending such events in the United States.

Luis Ramirez has been held for more than two weeks at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma after being detained while driving to work. His wife, Vanessa Jimenez, confronted ICE officers at a courthouse following his arrest. The family, based in Wapato, Washington, includes a spouse and four children—among them a nonverbal three-year-old and a three-month-old infant—who have lost their primary income and face financial hardship such as wage garnishment and credit damage. Ramirez moved to the U.S. from Mexico as a teenager, has lived in the country for roughly two decades, and had worked at the same Yakima Valley fruit company for 15 years before his detention.

Elomar Alexander Reyes, a 20-year-old baseball player, had been in the United States for only three months on a tourist visa, hoping to pursue a baseball career after training the previous year with the Arizona Diamondbacks organization in the Dominican Summer League, according to his father Ivys Reyes. He was detained and deported to Venezuela on Flight 164, arriving June 24, and was held at the Negra Hipólita Health Hotel in La Guaira, where he died when the building collapsed in an earthquake. His father recovered his body from a hospital morgue in Caracas but was not given his documents or personal belongings.

Abelardo Rincón, 23, spent six years in Georgia, where he worked at a car dealership, married, and was expecting the birth of his daughter before being detained in a U.S. immigration crackdown and deported to Venezuela on Flight 164 on June 24, 2026, with more than 140 other Venezuelans. He called his family in Atlanta from Hotel Santuario La Llanada in La Guaira, a coastal area later heavily damaged by twin earthquakes that killed at least 2,200 people, injured over 10,000, and left a reported 50,000 missing, according to the U.N. Rincón and other passengers from his flight remain unaccounted for, and his family continues searching for information. The Department of Homeland Security said the flight landed safely and that its responsibility ends once a person leaves ICE custody.

A 33-year-old Venezuelan man was detained at an ICE facility in El Paso, Texas and deported on a flight to Venezuela on June 24, 2026. He was transported to a hotel in La Guaira where earthquakes struck hours later, part of a group of more than 100 deportees held there at the time. His partner, Liliana Rojas, has been unable to locate him, and search efforts continue amid rubble as survivors and bodies are recovered.

Jenny Rodriguez, 24, was on the same deportation flight from Miami to Venezuela on June 24, 2026, and taken to Hotel Santuario La Llanada. When earthquakes struck hours later, she was trapped under rubble. A fellow deportee from the same flight helped free her hand from the debris, allowing her to escape.

Ayodeji Ajayi, a Nigerian national, was deported by ICE after remaining in the United States illegally for nearly two decades. Ajayi entered the U.S. in 2007 on a student visa but did not return to school and remained in the country without authorization. He accumulated multiple criminal convictions including domestic violence, trespassing, intimidation, obstruction, and charges related to kidnapping, rape, and family neglect. ICE attributed the deportation to Trump administration immigration enforcement policies.

Eighteen Venezuelan men expelled by the US to El Salvador's Cecot prison in March 2025 filed a petition before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights alleging torture, sexual assault, and medical neglect. The men, who were released and returned to Venezuela in July, detail a pattern of abuse including beatings, humiliation, and being held in windowless cells with constant bright lights. Human rights groups filed the petition on their behalf seeking international accountability for violations.

Joel, a 25-year-old landscaper and father of a 10-month-old U.S. citizen daughter, was detained by ICE in an unmarked vehicle stop while en route to work. He was held for five days in an unapproved Baltimore detention facility where he reports being denied food and water and forced to sleep on the floor. He was subsequently transferred through Pennsylvania, Louisiana, and back to Pennsylvania before being deported to Guatemala without opportunity to say goodbye to his daughter, leaving his 22-year-old partner and infant child without income or support.

Approximately a dozen asylum seekers were deported by the U.S. to Sierra Leone in June 2026, marking the second deportation flight to the country. Despite prior U.S. court orders protecting them from deportation to their home countries due to credible fears of persecution, the deportees now face being returned to those countries where they risk harm. According to attorney Erica Reilly, who represents one of the migrants, this follows nine West African migrants who arrived in Sierra Leone the previous month. The Trump administration has struck third-country deportation deals with at least nine African nations as well as multiple Latin American and Caribbean countries. Legal advocates argue the policy creates a loophole that indirectly forces asylum seekers back to dangerous conditions with limited U.S. oversight or legal recourse.

Francisca's partner and father of her five children was taken by ICE on June 20, 2026, and subsequently deported. Francisca now faces the burden of supporting her children—including a 2-year-old—while also navigating support for her deported partner. The family struggled to pay rent and basic necessities including food, diapers, and utilities after his removal.

A Honduran national was deported to Honduras on June 20, 2026, following completion of a Texas prison sentence and a final removal order issued by a Department of Justice immigration judge. According to ICE, he entered the United States at an unknown time and location. He was arrested by Irving Police in January 2024 and again in June 2025 by the Colleyville Police Department, with charges later reduced by prosecutors. He was convicted in December 2025 and sentenced to two years in prison, after which the Texas Department of Criminal Justice transferred him to ICE custody in May 2026.

Daniel Ojambo Adongo, 36, a former Indianapolis Colts linebacker and the first Kenyan to sign with an NFL team in 2013, was detained by ICE at the Miami Correctional Facility in Indiana beginning September 11, 2025, after overstaying his visa following the end of his NFL career in 2015. Adongo had a history of arrests by Indiana law enforcement for crimes including intimidation, battery, disorderly conduct, and criminal mischief. An immigration judge issued a final order of removal on March 23, 2026, and ICE executed the removal on June 20, 2026.