Human Impact Project

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.

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 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.

Rodolfo Hernandez-Yanez, 56, was arrested by ICE agents on May 6, 2025, in a rideshare parking lot along Highway 50 near Carson City while driving his children, aged 17 and 18, to school. He had attempted unauthorized entry in 2005, was turned away, and later entered illegally. He was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2014 and received a deportation order in 2019; his appeals were denied in March 2023 and his petition for review was dismissed in May 2024. He was processed for deportation to Mexico as part of a broader ICE enforcement operation that arrested 33 people across northern Nevada in two days.

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.

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.

During a May 2025 joint THP and ICE operation in Nashville, a Tennessee Highway Patrol trooper pulled over a vehicle for a broken light and shared the driver's immigration status with an ICE agent, resulting in the driver's detention and deportation. The week-long operation resulted in more than 100 arrests, separating families and leaving relatives behind in Nashville. Body camera footage from one traffic stop shows how the operation unfolded, with the ICE agent detaining the driver after learning of his undocumented status. Nearly a year later, families of those deported continue experiencing the operation's impacts.

An undocumented landscaper known as Esdras was detained during a May 2 traffic stop by Florida Highway Patrol and Border Patrol agents while driving to a landscaping job with his coworkers. Video footage shows officers pulling him out of the van by his leg and neck, forcing him to the ground while he was rigidly resisting, and tasering him twice in the stomach despite no indication of a threat. He spasmed and fell crying to the pavement. Esdras was transferred to the Krome Detention Center in Miami and faces deportation proceedings, though he has been released on bail.

An evangelical pastor, construction business owner, and father of five U.S.-citizen children was detained at a routine ICE check-in in Florida despite having a stay of removal and years of regular reporting. He was deported to Guatemala weeks later.

An Australian woman, the wife of an Army lieutenant, was detained by U.S. border officials at an airport in Hawaii in May while attempting to visit her husband. She was deported back to Australia.

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.

After months in ICE detention in Tacoma, Rakesh Rakesh volunteered to self-deport to India but was mistakenly placed on a flight to Sitka, Alaska instead of New York. Alaska Airlines staff assisted him with meals, lodging, and rebooking at no charge. Upon his return to Seattle, ICE re-detained him at the Northwest ICE Processing Center for an additional 16 days before completing his deportation, prompting him to conduct a hunger strike to protest the situation.

19-year-old Javier Salazar, a Venezuelan who came to the U.S. as an unaccompanied minor in 2022, was arrested in Maryland and detained by ICE on suspicion of gang membership based on a photo showing what may have been a toy water pistol. A Supreme Court intervention blocked his deportation to El Salvador hours before he was to be removed. His legal battle continues as the Trump administration seeks to expedite his removal.

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.

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.

Terez Metry was detained by immigration agents during a routine meeting at the Department of Homeland Security office on Brick Church Pike in Nashville. She had submitted Form I-130 as the first step toward obtaining a Green Card to become a U.S. citizen like her husband of three years. Her husband believes she is being taken to Louisiana for removal proceedings despite following immigration procedures carefully.

Amilcar Lisser-Posadas, a 29-year-old Honduran national and former DACA recipient with two U.S. citizen daughters, was apprehended in Shelby County, Tennessee in March 2025 for driving with an expired license and transferred to ICE custody. He was moved between multiple detention facilities over four weeks and filed a legal request citing fear of persecution in Honduras, which received no response. At Alexandria Staging Facility, he was detained for approximately 12 days in overcrowded conditions with inadequate sanitation, food, and medical care—arriving sick with chest congestion, fever, and ear infection but receiving no medication until the final two days. On April 23, 2025, he was deported to Honduras on GlobalX charter flights despite his pending legal request. He was later apprehended again at the southern border in May 2025 attempting to reunite with his family and is now facing deportation again from a federal prison.

Rosmery Alvarado, 42, a Kansas resident born in Guatemala, was arrested by ICE agents immediately after completing a spousal green card interview at the USCIS office in Kansas City on April 23, 2025. She is now facing deportation to Guatemala and is being held in detention, despite her family believing her petition had been approved. The arrest occurred after ICE agents waited for her husband to step out of the interview room before detaining and handcuffing her.

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.

Josue Coreas-Chavek, 29, from El Salvador, was arrested by ICE Buffalo on April 18, 2025, immediately after his release from Wyoming Correctional Facility. He had been sentenced in January 2025 to three years of incarceration and five years of supervised release for second-degree attempted robbery, conspiracy, and criminal facilitation. He faces additional pending charges including robbery, kidnapping, assault, coercion, unlawful imprisonment, and grand larceny, and is in ICE custody pending removal proceedings.

Two hundred migrants, including 80 children from Afghanistan, Russia, Armenia, Iran, China and other Asian countries, were deported from the United States on two flights and detained at Costa Rica's CATEM immigration detention center in February 2025. Many were separated from family members still in the U.S., not informed of their deportation destination, and experienced abuse and rights violations in U.S. detention before being sent to Costa Rica.

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.

A disgraced former Milwaukee police officer with serious credibility issues, Charles Cross Jr., signed a report claiming a gay Venezuelan makeup artist was affiliated with the Tren de Aragua gang based on tattoos. The report played a key role in the man's deportation to El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center. Cross had been flagged by prosecutors as having credibility issues due to accusations of lying and breaking the law.

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.

On April 1, state and federal police raided a party at an Airbnb in an Austin suburb, arresting nearly 50 people including nine children. The FBI, ICE, Texas Department of Public Safety, and Hays County Sheriff's Office claimed they targeted individuals connected to a Venezuelan gang, but offered no substantiating evidence. ICE arrested 35 individuals on unauthorized entry charges; federal court records suggest these were not prosecuted as criminal charges but rather processed through civil immigration detention, with many subsequently deported.

Jeankey Jhonayker Castro Bravo, a 24-year-old barber from Caracas, Venezuela, was stopped while driving for DoorDash in the Austin area on April 1. After showing his Venezuelan passport, a DPS trooper called in ICE. DPS accused him of gang affiliation based on his tattoos and arrested him for drug possession. He was held in jail for six months before the felony ketamine charge was dropped in October. He was subsequently deported to Venezuela.

Omar Abdulsattar Ameen, an Iraqi citizen, was deported to Rwanda in April 2025 as the first of multiple deportations to the country. Rwandan authorities have acknowledged that seven additional deportees arrived in August 2025. The identities, origins, legal status of the seven August arrivals, and Ameen's current fate are unknown. Rwanda agreed to receive up to 250 deported migrants under an agreement with the Trump administration.

Tim, a Nigerian man, was transferred to the Batavia ICE detention facility in April 2025 after suffering a major concussion from a fall while finishing a federal prison sentence. He was discharged from a Massachusetts hospital with nine prescribed medications and orders for inpatient physical therapy. At Batavia, he went at least a month without medication and received only one physical therapy session before being deported in summer 2025. He now requires a walker and reports severe mental health issues and insomnia.

Antonio Vizcaino González, a dual Venezuelan-Spanish citizen, was stopped by Texas Department of Public Safety for ignoring a stop sign while driving near an Airbnb in an Austin suburb on April 1. ICE agents arrived and found narcotics in his inner waistband, leading to a ketamine possession charge. He bonded out into ICE custody but was deported to Spain in May. The drug charge was later dropped by prosecutors due to lack of cooperation from federal law enforcement.

Alicia arrived for a routine ICE check-in in Louisiana in April 2025 and was detained without warning at Basile detention center. She soon discovered she was pregnant. In detention, she received inadequate food and in May began experiencing severe abdominal pain, cramping, and bleeding. At an emergency room, medical staff performed an invasive uterine test without her consent and informed her she had miscarried. ICE returned her to Basile that same night, where she remained detained for two more months despite continued heavy bleeding, swelling, fever, and severe uterine pain. Repeated sick call requests went unanswered. ICE deported her in July 2025, separating her from her children, and she later required hospital care for a severe infection acquired in custody.

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.

Gary Patrick McGuiness, a 39-year-old Irish citizen, was arrested by ICE in Los Angeles on April 1. McGuiness is registered as a sex offender and had previously been convicted of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse, serving a two-year prison sentence. He remains in ICE custody while his deportation proceeding is underway.

Maria's father, an undocumented immigrant from Durango, Mexico, is currently in ICE custody facing deportation. He came to the United States with Maria's mother decades ago but was unable to obtain legal residency. After Maria's mother passed away in 2018, he attempted to legalize his status based on a new law but was ultimately denied and ordered to return to Mexico for 1–10 years. Maria and her grandmother, who are dependent on him, face financial hardship and loss of transportation as a result of his detention.

Felipe Zapata Velázquez, 27, a third-year undergraduate at the University of Florida majoring in food and resource economics, was stopped by police in Gainesville on March 28 for traffic violations including an illegal license plate and driving with a suspended license. Despite holding a valid F-1 student visa, he was arrested and taken to Krome Detention Center in Miami-Dade County, where he was given the choice to wait for immigration court proceedings or sign deportation papers. He chose to sign the deportation papers and was deported to Colombia. His mother, Claudia Velázquez, stated that Felipe is undergoing physical and emotional recovery in Colombia. A protest demanding restoration of his immigration status was scheduled at the university, and Rep. Maxwell Frost characterized the case as part of a Trump administration crackdown on foreign students.

A 28-year-old Venezuelan man was detained by ICE agents during his final interview for permanent residency at a USCIS office in Phoenix, Arizona, despite having valid work permits and approval of his family petition. He was separated from his U.S. citizen wife and 3-year-old daughter during the interview and subsequently arrested and deported.

Jerce Reyes Barrios, a 36-year-old Venezuelan soccer player and father of two, was deported to El Salvador's CECOT prison under the Trump administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act, allegedly as a member of Tren de Aragua gang. His attorney claims the deportation was wrongful, arguing the government's only evidence is a tattoo of a soccer ball with a crown (a tribute to Real Madrid) and hand gestures from old Facebook posts.

A 53-year-old woman was detained by ICE while obtaining meat for a stew. Her 21-year-old daughter Samantha describes the incident. The woman is a long-term undocumented resident who has lived in the United States for three decades.

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.

ICE transferred 20-year-old Cristofer Ortega from New Jersey to a detention center in Louisiana despite having an approved legal pathway to citizenship through Special Immigrant Juvenile Status. Ortega, who arrived in the U.S. at age 9 and has no criminal record, was detained after an encounter while completing his HVAC certification. ICE is planning to deport him to Honduras before he can apply for his green card.

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.