Human Impact Project

An undocumented immigrant was detained by CBP outside St. Joseph's Hospital in Tucson, Arizona. He had gone to the hospital to care for a family member.

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.

Rudy Villeda Mejía, a Honduran immigrant who was kidnapped and held for ransom by Los Zetas cartel members for six months in 2010, was arrested by ICE at Denver International Airport on March 30, 2025, while in transit. Villeda Mejía entered the U.S. without authorization following his kidnapping and has since built a roofing business in Washington state with his U.S. citizen wife Mabel Shaffer, caring for her three children. He attended routine immigration check-ins consistently from August 2018 until his arrest and has no criminal history. His attorney filed a T visa application—the legal pathway available to human trafficking victims—which represents his only lawful way to remain with his family. Since his detention at an ICE facility in Aurora, Colorado, his wife has struggled to manage their roofing business while dealing with a hip displacement that requires his full-time care, the business has lost contracts, and Villeda Mejía has experienced health concerns including weight loss due to limited food options and outdoor access. A federal judge denied his habeas corpus petition and request to pause deportation pending appeal, and ICE has indicated he will remain in custody pending deportation despite the pending T visa application.

Jose Guadalupe Jaimes, a 55-year-old Mexican national who had lived in the United States for 30 years, was arrested by ICE outside Arthur Middle School in Trenton, Michigan, after dropping off his eighth-grade son, who has Asperger's syndrome. Jaimes owns a painting business and has a valid work permit with no criminal record. His children, Ana and Hector (a college junior), described him as a devoted father who emphasized education and built a life in metro Detroit with his wife and five children. According to his son Hector, ICE agents approached with guns drawn during the arrest; an ICE agent reportedly told Jaimes, "I don't even know why you're here because you have no record, you didn't do anything bad." An ICE spokesman stated Jaimes had been "ordered removed by an immigration judge in 2014." He is being held in St. Clair County Jail pending immigration proceedings. His family expressed deep concern about surviving financially and emotionally without him.

Flora, a Venezuelan trafficking survivor with an active asylum claim and pending T visa application, was detained by ICE on January 30, 2025, at a routine check-in appointment after reporting her alleged trafficker to federal authorities. She was transported 1,200 miles to a detention center in Louisiana and separated from her 4-year-old son and 18-month-old daughter for two months. Flora had fled her alleged abuser in early 2025 with help from a local nonprofit and was in the process of obtaining a T visa for trafficking survivors when ICE detained her. She was released on April 2, 2025, hours before a court hearing on her habeas corpus petition, but the detention caused significant retraumatization to her and her children.