Human Impact Project

V.M.L., a 2-year-old U.S. citizen born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on January 4, 2023, was detained by ICE on April 22, 2025, during a routine check-in at an Intensive Supervision Appearance Program office in New Orleans. She was apprehended alongside her undocumented mother and 11-year-old sister. When her father provided citizenship documents and his attorney filed emergency motions for habeas corpus and a temporary restraining order to prevent deportation, an ICE officer told the father they would deport his family anyway. The child and her mother were deported to Honduras on April 25, 2025, before the court could rule on the legal motions. The mother was held in an undisclosed location, cut off from family and counsel, and reportedly coerced into accepting deportation under duress. Federal Judge Terry Doughty expressed strong suspicion that the government deported a U.S. citizen "with no meaningful process" in violation of due process protections and scheduled a hearing for May 16 to investigate.

Two men were detained by ICE agents in Waltham after one agent broke a van window during the encounter on Tuesday. A 16-year-old witness recorded the incident and informed the men of their rights. It remains unclear what charges the men face or the reasons for their arrest.

ICE agents surrounded a family's vehicle on Mother's Day, smashed the passenger window, and detained Daniel Flores-Martinez in front of his wife and three children as they drove to church. The agents used unmarked vehicles, some wore vests labeled "police" while others were unmarked, and did not provide a warrant or explain why Flores-Martinez was being arrested. The family filed a complaint seeking $1 million in damages, alleging violations of Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights and that the agents deliberately chose to arrest Flores-Martinez while he was with his family. ICE agents conducted a vehicle stop in Chelsea on Friday morning to detain Jose Ramírez-Perez, who was in the country illegally and facing felony charges. During the stop, agents forcefully detained multiple family members including Hilda Ramírez, a legal permanent resident and mother of a 13-year-old U.S. citizen with autism. Video footage shows agents pressing and dragging Ramírez to the ground, breaking car windows, and temporarily detaining her son, resulting in hospitalization for both mother and child.

Police in Worcester, Massachusetts restrained a 16-year-old girl on May 9, 2025 while ICE agents detained her mother. Video footage documents the incident. The girl was charged with reckless endangerment, disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest.

Jenifer Gomez Hernandez, a 15-year-old girl from Chiapas, Mexico, was abandoned in Eagle Pass, Texas after suffering heatstroke and injuring her foot during her journey. She was last heard from on May 9, 2025, when a third person called using her phone before contact was lost. A migrant search and advocacy organization is asking the public for any information that could help locate her.

A small panga-style boat carrying migrants capsized off Torrey Pines State Beach near San Diego, killing four people including a 14-year-old boy and resulting in a 10-year-old girl missing at sea. The children's father is in a coma and their mother remains hospitalized. Five Mexican citizens have been charged with human smuggling resulting in death and other related crimes.

Two U.S. citizen children, ages 5 and 4, were deported to Mexico after their mother was lured to an immigration processing appointment under false pretenses. The mother, who was told she would be eligible for asylum and a work permit if she appeared for a routine check-in, was instead deported to Reynosa, Mexico along with her three children. The two youngest children are U.S. citizens who were deported without proper legal process or opportunity for informed consent from their mother.

Denisse Parra Vargas, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, was stopped for expired tags in North Austin on Thursday and later instructed to report to a processing center in Pflugerville on Tuesday. When she reported with her three children, ICE arrested all of them. Two of her three children are U.S. citizens. The family was deported to Mexico within 24 hours.

Patricia Vázquez Topete, a DACA recipient who had lived in California for 20 years, self-deported to Mexico in May 2025. She cited legal uncertainty surrounding DACA's future, immigration enforcement under the Trump administration, the inability to travel safely using Advance Parole, and lack of a permanent legal status pathway as factors in her decision. Vázquez Topete sold her belongings and left the U.S. to pursue a master's degree in Spain while reconnecting with family in Mexico.

A 21-year-old Colombian woman who was eight months pregnant was deported from Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport. She had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in November seeking asylum but was subject to expedited removal. A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order to stop the deportation, but the order came approximately three hours after the flight had departed.

ICE agents apprehended a man at a Sinclair gas station in Oxnard, California on May 4, leaving two children in his vehicle. A gas station attendant witnessed the arrest and reported that the children remained in the truck after the father was taken into custody. DHS stated that the man's 19-year-old son took possession of the vehicle and that ICE offered to relocate it, though advocacy groups contend the children were left unattended.

As the Trump administration accelerates deportations, child welfare advocates have stated concerns about potential violations of children's rights. Cases include a 2-year-old kept in U.S. custody after her mother was deported to Venezuela.

After a Guatemalan woman gave birth at Tucson Medical Center in Arizona while in Border Patrol custody, she was told she faced immediate deportation and would have to decide whether to take her U.S.-citizen newborn daughter with her. Agents stationed at the hospital refused to let her attorney access her so that she could sign a G-28 form. After public pressure and intervention from local officials and counsel, the mother and baby were released into the care of a nonprofit in Phoenix.

ICE agents conducted a search warrant raid at an Oklahoma City residence as part of a human smuggling investigation. The warrant named suspects who no longer lived at the property. Agents forcibly removed a U.S. citizen mother and her three daughters, seized their phones, laptops, and cash savings, and ordered them outside in the rain. Homeland Security later acknowledged the family were not the intended targets of the investigation.

The Trump administration has expanded immigration detention by moving hundreds of immigrants to federal prisons run by the Bureau of Prisons. Detainees report conditions including moldy food, overcrowding, denial of legal access, being cut off from attorneys and families, and being moved without notice to facilities across the country including Atlanta, Miami, Philadelphia, Berlin, and Leavenworth.

Daniel Flores Martinez was detained by ICE agents on Mother's Day 2025 when federal immigration officers surrounded his vehicle as he drove to church with his wife Kenia Guerrero and their three children, ages 3, 12, and 14. Agents broke the car window, pulled him from the vehicle, and slammed his face on the sidewalk with knees on top of him while his children screamed in fear; officers also grabbed and restrained Guerrero when she exited the car. Flores Martinez is being held in an ICE detention facility in Rhode Island on undisclosed charges. His attorney, Iván Espinoza-Madrigal of Lawyers for Civil Rights, argues that every step of his detention was illegal, including the warrantless car entry and violation of Fourth Amendment protections for the vehicle's interior.

A man was detained by ICE in February 2026 during a scheduled check-in and deported to Laos in early May, leaving his wife and five sons in South St. Paul without their primary financial provider. His deportation came after ICE agents confronted his wife while driving to work, warning of the impending arrest. The family has since relocated and relied on extended family support to manage the financial hardship resulting from his removal.

ICE agents detained Clemente Chilel Ramírez at his Phoenix apartment on April 29th after he returned from work, with his three children present during the operation. According to ICE, Ramírez had a deportation order issued in 2024 for illegally re-entering the United States after being expelled in 2016. Agents used a battering ram to enter the apartment, which ICE stated they had a search warrant for. Ramírez has no criminal record.

Luis Fernando Cabrera, an 18-year-old senior at Northeast Early College High School in Austin, was released from ICE custody on May 20, 2026, after being detained on May 1 while driving home from his job at Popeyes. A federal judge ordered his release and barred the Department of Homeland Security from deporting him while his ongoing asylum case is processed. Cabrera will be able to attend his high school graduation.

America Perez Ramirez, 52, was ordered by DHS to check in at an ICE field office and bring airline tickets for deportation to Mexico with her 11-year-old U.S. citizen daughter Yoselin, who has Maple Syrup Urine Disease, a life-threatening rare genetic disorder. Yoselin requires her mother's care to survive and her University of Florida doctor stated she cannot live without current treatment. Perez Ramirez, who came on an H2-B labor visa and was trafficked by her employer, had received four previous stays of deportation under prior administrations, but was denied another stay this time.

A pregnant mother and her 2-year-old U.S. citizen daughter were deported to Honduras after the mother was given less than two minutes on the phone with her husband to decide the child's fate. Attorneys say ICE denied the family contact with lawyers and each other throughout the process. ICE produced a one-page note in Spanish claiming consent, but her attorney states she was forced to write it and did not willingly consent to the deportation.

A 16-year-old unaccompanied immigrant girl in Washington state was visited by ICE officials for a "welfare check" earlier in April. During the visit, the frightened girl messaged and called her legal representative expressing fear that her life would be upended. The visit was characterized by her attorney as causing terror and trauma, illustrating the impact of ICE's targeting of unaccompanied minors under the guise of welfare checks.

Alfredo Linares, an undocumented immigrant, and his American wife Raegan Kline relocated to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico after 20 years in the United States. Linares had worked as a cook at a Michelin-star restaurant and operated a catering business with his wife. The couple left the United States due to concerns about ICE detention and deportation under President Trump's immigration enforcement policies.

ICE deported an immigrant mother of an infant and three U.S. citizen children, according to lawyers. The woman had four children who are U.S. citizens at the time of her deportation.

ICE deported at least two families including three U.S. citizen children aged 2, 4, and 7 from New Orleans in early morning operations on April 25, 2025. The families were held without legal access. One child with metastatic cancer was deported without medication and a pregnant mother was deported without prenatal care arrangements. The deportations occurred after ICE reversed course and expedited the process before courts reopened. A habeas corpus petition had been filed.

A 4-year-old U.S. citizen child with Stage 4 cancer and his 7-year-old sister were deported to Honduras with their mother on Friday morning. ICE was aware of the child's active cancer treatment in the United States but deported him without his medication. Attorneys say the mother did not sign or write any consent, did not speak with lawyers or family before deportation, and wanted to make alternative arrangements for her U.S. citizen children.

A 2-year-old U.S. citizen was apparently removed to Honduras on Friday with her mother, who had been ordered deported, according to a federal judge in Louisiana. The child's mother, a Honduran national, was seized by ICE on Tuesday morning in New Orleans while attending a scheduled check-in appointment with an Intensive Supervision Appearance Program office. During approximately three days in ICE custody, the mother and her two daughters were separated from family and legal counsel. U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty wrote that the child was sent to Honduras "with no meaningful due process" and expressed "strong suspicion that the Government just deported a U.S. citizen." The mother's attorney stated that ICE mischaracterized the removal as the mother's voluntary choice and that she was pregnant and prevented from contacting lawyers or family to make arrangements.

Sergio Cerdio Gomez, a 42-year-old Pasco food truck owner and father of three, was detained by ICE agents on April 24, 2025, during a scheduled immigration interview in Yakima. Gomez was attending the interview with his U.S. citizen wife, Gabrielle Cerdio, regarding his pending green card and citizenship application, which they had filed in 2022. He was taken into custody on an outstanding warrant. Gomez co-owns the Kennewick food truck Hibachi Explosion with his wife. He was subsequently deported to Chiapas, Mexico in June 2025.

Unaccompanied migrant children, including a 4-year-old girl, are appearing in immigration court proceedings without legal representation after the Trump administration terminated a $200 million federal contract funding legal services for minors. Data shows nearly all children without attorneys are deported, compared to 23% of those with representation.

A family of six asylum seekers from southwestern Africa — parents Josefina and José and their four children, ages 13, 10, 5 and 11 months — were held in a single windowless cell at a CBP facility in Blaine, Washington for about a month starting in April 2025, according to an ACLU complaint. Josefina, who was five months into a high-risk pregnancy, was hospitalized twice during the detention after CBP staff allegedly kept her in unsafe conditions despite hospital warnings, and she suffered pregnancy complications. The children reportedly went weeks without mental stimulation or physical activity, and the 13-year-old was allegedly handcuffed when taken to shower. The ACLU of Washington filed a federal claim seeking $15 million in damages from the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection, one of 54 such claims filed nationwide in July under the Federal Tort Claims Act.

Erasmo Zavala Almanza, a 50-year-old undocumented Mexican immigrant, was arrested by ICE agents at his home in April 2025 after cooperating with Berks County police in investigating the fatal shooting of his 20-year-old daughter and wounding of his granddaughter in February 2025. Despite applying for a U visa with support from the District Attorney's Office and receiving a favorable bona fide determination from USCIS along with deferred action and work authorization, ICE detained him at Moshannon Valley Processing Center and initiated deportation proceedings. His case reflects a shift under the Trump administration from prior guidance that discouraged arrests of crime victims and witnesses. A federal judge issued a temporary bar on removal while considering whether to grant a preliminary injunction to block deportation.

Department of Homeland Security agents attempted to speak with students at two Los Angeles elementary schools (Russell Elementary and Lillian Street Elementary) stating they were conducting welfare checks on unaccompanied minors. School principals denied the agents access. House Democrats have requested a briefing regarding the agents' claim of having parental permission and regarding four of the targeted students who were not unaccompanied minors.

Jessica Flores Marin, 44, a mother of three who has lived in the United States for 22 years, was detained by ICE on April 13 near her family's home in Georgia. She was taken into custody while an ongoing T visa application was being processed. Her detention came after an immigration judge denied her motion to reopen a decades-old deportation order from 2004.

Hugo, a father of five and husband of a U.S. citizen veteran who had lived in the U.S. since age 16, was detained by ICE at a courthouse during what should have been a final hearing for permanent residency. Despite being in an active legal process and authorized to be in the U.S., officials ordered him to continue his case from Mexico and deported him. ICE later admitted the detention was a mistake, but Hugo has been separated from his family.

Adrian Gil Rojas, a Venezuelan national, holds Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and has been detained at El Valle Detention Center for more than two months. He has a two-year-old son in the United States whose mother witnessed ICE officers illegally arrest Mr. Gil Rojas approximately two months ago, leaving their young son alone and traumatized. Mr. Gil Rojas also served as a trial witness in a murder case in Clinton County, New York, where he testified despite fears of retaliation and helped secure a conviction. He is challenging his detention through a habeas corpus petition, arguing that 8 U.S.C. § 1254a(d)(4) explicitly prohibits detention of individuals with TPS status on the basis of immigration status. The government claims it can detain him based on speculative predictions that his TPS may expire on April 2, 2025, and that a pending motion to reopen his removal case may be denied, but the petition argues this violates the TPS statute's unambiguous prohibition and that his removal is automatically stayed while the motion remains pending.

In Louisiana, ICE detained two mothers during routine check-ins and deported them within days to Honduras with their children. Three of the children — ages 2, 4, and 7 — were U.S. citizens. One mother was pregnant, and one child had a rare form of cancer. ICE deported the child without medication or a chance for doctors to advise on care.

Immigration Judge Jem Sponzo issued 25 deportation orders for minors in a single morning in April 2025 in a downtown New York immigration courtroom, with some hearings lasting only minutes. Among those ordered deported were an 8-year-old girl from Ecuador seeking asylum and SIJS whose mother had already won asylum; a Guatemalan child whose attorney requested more time to prepare evidence for an asylum petition citing an abusive father in the home country; and a high school senior from Guatemala seeking SIJS and asylum. Attorneys reported feeling blindsided by the judge's rapid-fire denials. Sponzo was subsequently fired, becoming one of over 100 immigration judges terminated since Trump returned to office.

Vicente Garcia Jr., 18, of Roma, Texas, was arrested after allegedly driving a vehicle involved in human smuggling operations in McAllen on March 28. According to federal prosecutors, Garcia was transporting a smuggled person to another smuggler, Jose Alexis Baeza-Combaluzier, who was driving a vehicle with four additional smuggled passengers. When law enforcement observed the suspected smuggling operation and attempted to approach, Baeza-Combaluzier drove through a flooded road and crashed his vehicle into a canal, resulting in the deaths of a woman and a 14-year-old child. Garcia faces up to life in prison or the death penalty if convicted.

Jose Alexis Baeza-Combaluzier, a 26-year-old Mexican national, was driving a Ford Explorer involved in alleged human smuggling when U.S. Border Patrol agents approached the vehicle during severe flooding in McAllen, Texas. Baeza-Combaluzier fled and drove into a canal; agents rescued him and four migrants, but a woman and 13-year-old boy drowned in the incident. He has been charged in connection with the smuggling deaths and faces up to life in prison or the death penalty if convicted.

ICE conducted a raid on a paint business in El Cajon on March 27, 2025, arresting Jorge Lopez Leon and approximately 14 other workers. Lopez Leon, a father of four whose wife is a U.S. citizen and who was in the process of obtaining a green card, was detained at Otay Mesa Detention Center. The operation involved dozens of agents with weapons and resulted in the deportation of at least three workers who chose not to contest their cases in immigration court.

An Instagram post reports that ICE detained a working father in San Diego, leaving behind his family and a two-month-old baby.

Sergio Garcia Silva, a 65-year-old chef who lived in the United States for 36 years, was deported to Mexico by ICE on March 25, 2025. He had no criminal record and owned a Mexican restaurant business in Waco. Garcia had entered the U.S. in 1989 and spent 25 years attempting to become a U.S. citizen before being arrested at his food truck and deported within one day. The deportation was based on a two-decade-old deportation order for illegal re-entry that had never been previously enforced. After deportation, Garcia was held captive by an extortion group in Mexico and was apprehended by Border Patrol when attempting to return, resulting in a second deportation in June 2025. The deportations separated him from his family, including four children, who remained in the United States.

An undocumented Maryland mother whose teenage son died of cancer while she was in ICE custody has requested deportation to Mexico. Officials did not release Martinez-Carrada in time to see her son before his death in late January, though she was permitted to attend his funeral.

Nine members of a Queens church music ministry were detained by ICE during a traffic stop on their return trip from an out-of-state church event. While in detention, they signed documents for voluntary departure to Guatemala. All nine were primary breadwinners who left behind spouses and young children.

ICE detained two teenagers in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania on March 20 while they were riding their bikes to work. Coraopolis police stopped the teenagers and may have called ICE to detain them around 9:00 AM. Frontline DIGNITY shared the report to support community awareness and preparedness.

Jeanette Vizguerra-Ramirez, a 43-year-old Mexican citizen who has lived in the U.S. since 1997, was detained on March 17, 2025, at the GEO Group's ICE Processing Center in Aurora, Colorado. She is the mother of three U.S. citizen children. In 2011, an Immigration Judge denied her cancellation of removal application but granted her voluntary departure with 60 days to leave. She appealed that decision, which tolled her departure period. In September 2012, while her appeal was pending, she traveled to Mexico to see her dying mother; her departure was deemed a withdrawal of the appeal, triggering her timely compliance with the voluntary departure order. She returned to the U.S. in April 2013 without inspection and was subsequently apprehended and charged criminally. On July 24-25, 2013, ICE issued a Form I-871 purporting to reinstate her prior removal order, but the petition alleges the reinstatement was procedurally deficient because it was signed before she was notified of her right to challenge it. ICE granted her a stay of removal on August 8, 2013, which has been repeatedly extended since then. She is now challenging her detention through a habeas corpus petition, arguing she has no valid removal order and therefore no statutory authority supports her detention.

ImmigrationDefenders reports that parents attempting to reunify with children in federal custody are being arrested and placed into deportation proceedings. The organization represents 12 children in Southern California whose parents were detained shortly after initiating the reunification process, leaving children stranded in shelters.

Yolanda Perez-Magallón, a 50-year-old undocumented immigrant and caregiver for her 21-year-old daughter with cancer, was detained by ICE agents on February 24 as a collateral arrest during an immigration sweep targeting her son Jonathan. She was held for nearly two weeks before being released on a $1,500 bond and is scheduled to appear in court on April 10.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Elmer Flores on March 9 after he dropped off his pregnant wife and children at a Mecklenburg County health office for a nutrition program appointment. According to advocacy group Siembra NC, Flores had no criminal record and is being held at a detention facility in Georgia.

Issa Salma Baouna, a 49-year-old green-card holder from Niger, was denied reentry to the United States at John F. Kennedy International Airport on March 6 after CBP determined he was inadmissible due to a prior removal order from 2022. Baouna had been ordered removed following an arrest for assault and visa overstay, and was paroled back into the country multiple times in 2023. After voluntarily returning to Niger, he contracted malaria that led to kidney failure. His wife left the U.S. with their two children to reunite with him.