Human Impact Project

Daniel Ramirez, a 30-year-old Texas resident born in Mexico's Tamaulipas state and raised in Brownsville, was detained by U.S. immigration agents near his home and held for days in detention without being able to shower or brush his teeth before being shackled for a 15-hour flight to Guatemala City under the Trump administration's third-country deportation policy. He was then bused across the border into Tapachula, Mexico, more than 1,000 miles from the U.S. border, joining at least 2,200 Mexican nationals sent to Guatemala this year as part of a broader program that has deported about 22,000 people to third countries, with roughly 19,000 sent to Mexico. Ramirez, who lived in the U.S. for years without legal status, said the transfer felt like "a punishment for us so we don't go back again." He later took a multi-day bus trip to Matamoros, near Brownsville, where he found work painting cars.

A Mexican mother experienced a tense week after ICE agents arrived at her home, an episode that culminated in an immigration court appearance. During the ordeal, her child wrote a handwritten letter pleading, "Please ICE, don't take my mom," after agents came to their house.

Austin Connell, a concrete business owner who posts about politics online, was visited at his home in Carrollton, Virginia by Secret Service agents who had obtained screenshots of his private Instagram direct messages. Connell said he does not know how the agents accessed the private messages, which included anti-ICE content, and noted he had also publicly criticized ICE. "I'm for law enforcement—just not corrupt law enforcement," he said.

ICE and Homeland Security Investigations agents entered private property in Brownsville, Texas, to arrest a man, while the property owner demanded to see a judicial warrant. According to local news reports cited in the post, immigration authorities told the Brownsville Police Department they would be increasing their presence in the city.

Nazira Haji Zada, a 47-year-old Afghan lawful permanent resident, was arrested at her home in Fort Worth, Texas, in July 2026 after prosecutors alleged she supported a plan by her son and son-in-law to carry out an ISIS-inspired mass shooting on Election Day 2024. Rather than face criminal charges, the Justice Department pursued the first-ever case against her in the Alien Terrorist Removal Court, a specialized federal tribunal created in 1996 but never previously used, which permits the use of classified evidence. Her court-appointed public defenders challenged the proceedings on due process grounds and questioned the court's constitutionality, arguing evidence had been withheld from her defense, though the judge allowed the case to proceed. Haji Zada ultimately waived her right to contest the proceedings and consented to removal, and a federal judge ordered her deportation to Afghanistan on August 20. Her son Abdullah was separately sentenced to 15 years in prison, and her son-in-law pleaded guilty to terrorism-related charges.

An Iraqi man showing early signs of dementia was arrested by ICE agents in his front yard after living in the United States for more than 30 years. A judge had previously ruled he would likely face persecution or torture if deported to Iraq, granting him legal protection from removal to his home country. Despite that ruling, he was taken into custody and held in Arizona ICE detention facilities. He was among a group of immigrants who remained detained even after winning protection from deportation to their home countries, according to an analysis of habeas corpus petitions.

Ibrahim Mohammed, a 44-year-old Ethiopian national who came to the U.S. in 2014, was granted protection from deportation in 2024 under the Convention Against Torture after an immigration judge found he would likely face torture or persecution if returned to Ethiopia. Despite federal court orders in February and March requiring his release, roughly 10 ICE agents arrested him a third time on July 28, 2025, at his Baltimore-area apartment after falsely telling him and his attorney his ankle monitor was malfunctioning. Agents shoved his head into a car and gave him documents referencing Eswatini, a country ICE had previously tried unsuccessfully to deport him to. A judge again ordered his immediate release the same day, and U.S. District Judge John deGravelles later held then-ICE deputy field office director Vernon Liggins, who ordered the arrest on his last day in that role, in civil contempt, ordering ICE to pay Mohammed's attorney's fees and $180 for lost time. Mohammed, who spent 13 months in and out of ICE custody, testified the repeated detentions caused him nightmares and led his landlord to force him to move out.

Katrina Castro-Menéndez, 41, a former municipal judge from Matanzas, Cuba, was detained by ICE agents outside her home in Cooper City, Florida, after her husband left for work and while her 15-year-old daughter slept inside. She was taken to ICE offices in Miramar and then to the Broward Transition Center, where she remains held pending removal proceedings. The Department of Homeland Security alleges she committed immigration fraud by concealing Communist Party membership on her asylum and residency applications, reasoning that her past judicial role implies such affiliation, but Katrina says a lawyer who charged her $3,000 never properly interviewed her and that mandatory Cuban civic groups she belonged to are distinct from party membership. She appeared before an immigration judge in Miami on August 5 without legal representation and testified she had never joined the Communist Party. Her husband, Deyni Rojas González, whose humanitarian parole documentation has expired, cannot visit her in person or maintain video calls, and she says she has rehearsed how to tell her daughter they may be deported to Cuba.

A native and citizen of Georgia entered the United States without inspection in February 2023 and was briefly apprehended by CBP before being released into the country, where he resided for over three years. On August 15, 2026, he was arrested near his home in Philadelphia by ICE and transferred to the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia. The government argued he was subject to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A) as an 'applicant for admission' still 'seeking admission.' He filed a habeas corpus petition on August 18, 2026, arguing his detention without a bond hearing was unlawful. The court held that § 1225(b)(2)(A) applies only to newly arriving noncitizens, not those who have resided in the country for years and were arrested in the interior, and that his detention should instead be governed by § 1226(a). The court granted his petition and ordered his immediate release.

A Ukrainian national and humanitarian parolee entered the United States about two years ago under the Uniting for Ukraine humanitarian parole program, presenting himself for inspection at JFK International Airport and being paroled in. His parole was granted through May 19, 2026, and he applied to renew it before expiration, with that application still pending. He resided in the U.S. without committing any crimes during this time. On August 15, 2026, ICE arrested him near his home and transferred him to the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia, where he remains detained. He filed a habeas corpus petition on August 19, 2026, arguing that his mandatory detention without a bond hearing under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2) was unlawful because that provision applies only to newly arriving noncitizens, not those who have resided in the country for years. The court agreed, holding his detention should instead be governed by § 1226(a), and granted his petition, ordering his immediate release.

Maria Perez, a Guatemalan asylum-seeker fleeing domestic violence, was arrested by ICE agents at her Nashville home on May 19, 2026, while preparing to take her two young children to a doctor's appointment. Attorneys said agents had come to serve a warrant on her husband but detained her instead, despite ICE policy generally barring detention of nursing mothers absent extraordinary circumstances. She was breastfeeding an infant and had a toddler with Down syndrome requiring ongoing medical care; the children were left in a neighbor's care without a formal plan, causing them to miss medical appointments. Perez, who has no criminal history, passed a credible fear interview, and had complied with immigration requirements since entering the U.S. in 2022, was held nearly 700 miles from home at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center, where her sudden separation from her nursing infant compounded her diabetes. Advocacy groups including Sanctuary of the South, the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition, ACLU of Louisiana, Amnesty International, and the Kennedy Human Rights Center filed a civil rights complaint with DHS seeking her release. She was released on August 14, 2026, reunited with her children, and continues pursuing her asylum application.

A man was arrested by ICE agents outside his family's home in Florida moments after dropping his younger son off for soccer practice. He was held at the Miramar GSA ICE Processing Center for about 96 hours, with roughly 67 hours passing without any contact with his family, before being transferred to the Broward Transitional Center. Despite his family submitting over 200 pages of documentation, including community testimonies and 20 years of tax records showing no criminal history after more than 25 years in the U.S., his bond was denied on flight-risk grounds. He was then transferred again, traveling more than 27 hours with his hands and feet restrained to the Rio Grande Detention Center in Texas, during which he was fed only about twice. His family describes him as a husband of over 28 years, a father of two, a taxpayer, a maintenance supervisor, and a soccer coach, and is now pursuing a bond redetermination.

A Guatemalan teenager who fled to the US in 2022 at age 16 to escape domestic violence has lived in the country for about four years. He was initially processed as an unaccompanied minor, held by DHS/ORR, and released to his aunt, a vetted sponsor, after being deemed neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community. He currently lives in Daly City with his mother, works at a Korean restaurant, and has no criminal history. On August 10, 2026, four ICE officers arrested him outside his home, handcuffed him despite his complaints of pain, and drove him to a parking structure where he was pressured to sign a document. He filed a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus and a TRO motion challenging the lawfulness of his detention and seeking release plus protection from re-detention without notice and a hearing. The court found he was likely to succeed on his procedural due process claims and granted the TRO, ordering his immediate release, barring removal or transfer out of the district, and setting a show cause hearing for August 24, 2026.

A Haitian man who had entered a national parole program in Manchester before relocating to White River Junction in 2025 was arrested by ICE agents at his door at 7 a.m. on Aug. 7, according to Yvonne Lodico of Grace Initiative Global. The man had employment authorization and an asylum application under review, and was moved between detention locations before arriving in New Hampshire. His wife, who requested anonymity for safety reasons, said that when she followed and asked ICE agents where they were taking her husband, an agent pulled out a gun and pointed it at her while she sat in her car.

A citizen of India who entered the U.S. in December 2022 and was released on parole under Alternatives to Detention has lived in the country for nearly four years, maintaining stable employment and strong ties to his Sikh community. He filed an asylum application in April 2023, which remains pending, and obtained work authorization valid through October 2028, complying with all ATD monitoring requirements and having no criminal history. On August 5, 2026, he was swept up when Deportation Officers assisting the FBI executed a search warrant at an apartment in Antelope, California—an address that was not his own residence, as his driver's license lists a Sacramento address. Although an I-213 noted he was 'identified as being part of an active shooting investigation,' the record contains no evidence connecting him to the shooting, and officers instead ran a biometrics check, determined he lacked lawful status, and arrested him on an administrative warrant. He was issued a Notice to Appear and detained at the Golden State Annex Detention Facility in McFarland, California, without a prior hearing. He filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus and a motion for a temporary restraining order, arguing his detention without notice or a hearing violated his Fifth Amendment due process rights. The court agreed, granted the habeas petition, ordered his immediate release, and enjoined the government from re-detaining him absent seven days' notice and a bond hearing demonstrating by clear and convincing evidence that he poses a flight risk or danger to the community.

The petitioner, a citizen of India who entered the United States in July 2025 at around age 20, had a pending asylum application filed with USCIS in October 2025 and had been granted employment authorization valid through December 2027. In March 2026, his guardian petitioned a California state court for guardianship, which was granted in May 2026 after the court found that reunification with his parents was not viable due to abandonment and that returning him to India was not in his best interest. Based on those findings, he submitted a special immigrant juvenile status petition to USCIS. On August 5, 2026, ICE detained him at a residence where federal law enforcement was executing a search warrant during an active shooting investigation, though he was not accused of any crime. He filed a habeas corpus petition and a motion for a temporary restraining order challenging his detention as a due process violation, arguing he had a protected liberty interest given his sanctioned presence in the country. The court agreed, finding his circumstances similar to a prior case where a detainee's employment authorization constituted government sanctioning of his continued presence, and ordered a bond hearing. The court required the government to prove by clear and convincing evidence that he is a flight risk or danger to the community, and denied the TRO motion as moot given the bond hearing order.

Mohamed Barry, 52, a truck driver from Guinea who had lived in the U.S. for 25 years and held a withholding of removal order protecting him from deportation to his home country, was captured by Border Patrol outside his home in Brownsburg, Indiana on July 1 and later placed on a July 31 ICE charter flight to Africa carrying an estimated 71 detainees. Barry, who has five U.S. citizen children including a nine-year-old daughter, said ICE-contracted GEO Group guards drank alcohol, refused to let shackled passengers use the lavatory, and placed at least two people in restraint devices during the 26-hour flight to Sierra Leone, the Central African Republic, and Ghana. After being held under armed guard in a Ghana hotel for three days, Barry agreed to return to Guinea despite his protection order, then fled across a border into a neighboring country where he is now in hiding without identification and with a dwindling supply of heart medication. "I can't tell you how heartbroken I am leaving my younger girls," Barry said. "I'm the one who takes them to the bus stop."

Jaciel Cirrus Rojas, a Mexican national and Chatino-language speaker from rural Oaxaca, came to Racine in 2018 to reunite with his brother. In June 2025, ICE agents arrived at his home searching for a prior tenant and detained him as "collateral" despite no prior criminal convictions or civil citations. Held at Dodge County jail for nine months and separated from his partner and child, Rojas filed for asylum citing fear of torture if returned to Mexico. His attorney Jennifer Bizzotto challenged his detention through a federal habeas petition. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in his favor on July 31, 2026, rejecting the Trump administration's mandatory detention policy and allowing detainees like Rojas to seek bond hearings in immigration court.

A 46-year-old Ecuadorian national who has lived in the United States since 2003 and established community roots in Philadelphia with two U.S. citizen children was detained by DHS/ICE on July 29, 2026, after officers showed him a photograph of a different individual they were seeking. Despite his denial that he was the person depicted, officers detained him anyway at the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia. The court granted his habeas corpus petition on August 1, 2026, finding that his detention without a bond hearing violated the Immigration and Nationality Act, ordered his immediate release, and temporarily enjoined re-detention for seven days pending a proper bond hearing.

A Latino man was arrested by ICE agents in Smyrna, Georgia while walking to cash his weekly paycheck. According to witnesses, a federal agent exited a vehicle with his gun drawn and pointed at the man without stated cause, followed by other agents who tackled him to the ground and handcuffed him. The man has lived in the U.S. since 2001, has no criminal record, and communicated to family members that the arrest was a traumatic experience.