Human Impact Project

Martin Soto, a Peruvian detainee held at Delaney Hall in Newark, was forcibly transferred by ICE agents to solitary confinement at a detention center in Elizabeth, New Jersey, after agents broke through a protester blockade in the early morning hours of May 25, 2026. His wife Gabriela, a U.S. citizen who was several months pregnant, had been rallying outside the facility in support of detainees who had launched a hunger and labor strike days earlier. Gabriela later lost her pregnancy in July after an emergency C-section performed when she was seven months pregnant, and said she had to tell her husband the news while he remained in solitary confinement.

Rogelio Bolufé, a 44-year-old Cuban immigrant, initiated a 10-day hunger strike while detained at Torrance County Detention Facility in New Mexico to protest poor conditions and alleged confiscation of legal documents by CoreCivic staff. Within 48 hours of being taken to the Albuquerque ICE field office, he was transferred to multiple detention facilities across Texas, Alabama, Arizona, and Washington. Bolufé alleged the transfers constituted retaliation for his advocacy and complaints, and claimed he was denied medical care during the process, including being forced to sleep on cold floors in overcrowded conditions. He was appealing a deportation order and seeking a Green Card under the Cuban Adjustment Act. Bolufé was ultimately deported by ICE in May 2026.

Approximately 200 to 1,400 detainees at North Lake Processing Facility, a 1,800-bed ICE detention center in Baldwin, Michigan, began a hunger and labor strike on Monday, April 21, 2026, to protest conditions including medical neglect, slow ICE communication, and prolonged confinement. The facility, operated by private prison company GEO Group, holds detainees with average stays of 49 days, though some have been held for nearly six months. By Wednesday morning, detainees in at least one unit had stopped the strike.

Nearly 100 detainees at Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Clearfield County launched a hunger strike between April 16-19, 2026, to protest detention conditions and medical care. The strike began after a detainee became ill with influenza on April 16, with 50-70 detainees in the same housing pod initially refusing an evening meal due to food contamination concerns. Advocacy groups reported that detainees were protesting unsafe living conditions, including contaminated food, inadequate medical care, and staff indifference to medical emergencies, with reports of a recent medical emergency in which a detainee lost consciousness without receiving proper care. Advocacy group Frontline DIGNITY called for the facility's shutdown and independent investigation. Clearfield County commissioners met with GEO Group leadership, the facility operator, to address the incident.

Andriy Shepitsen, a 46-year-old Ukrainian man, has been detained in ICE custody since December 2025 at Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami. Despite being prescribed medications for bipolar disorder, major depression, and ADHD, detention staff denied him these drugs for over four months. In February 2026, Shepitsen began a hunger strike to protest detention conditions, which lasted 60 days and resulted in a 46-pound weight loss, causing him to develop life-threatening hypotensive shock and requiring hospitalization. He reported suicidal thoughts multiple times during his detention. Advocacy groups including Amnesty International USA and the ACLU of Florida demanded emergency medical intervention and his release.

Martin Soto, a 30-year-old Peruvian national and father of two young children, was detained by ICE on February 1, 2026, while returning home from buying diapers for his 11-month-old son in Kearny, New Jersey. Soto entered the U.S. in late 2023 and had lived in the country for two years with no criminal record, waiting for a court hearing scheduled for 2028. He is married to Gabriela, a U.S. citizen, and has a pending asylum case. Soto was held at Delaney Hall, an ICE detention facility in Newark operated by the for-profit GEO Group. According to his wife, he experienced medical neglect, poor food conditions, and staff abuse during his detention, losing approximately 51 pounds. In May 2026, he was transferred to Elizabeth Detention Center after participating in a hunger strike and his wife publicly exposed conditions at Delaney Hall. Soto had been the family's primary breadwinner working full-time in a restaurant kitchen. Martín Soto, 30, was detained by ICE on February 1, 2025, while buying diapers for his children near sunset, and transferred to Delaney Hall detention center in Newark. A Peruvian national who crossed the U.S. border unauthorized in Arizona in late 2023 and filed an asylum claim, he was released after four months with a court date set for 2028 and began working as a cook at an Italian restaurant in Kearny. His wife, Gabriela Soto, 28, a U.S. citizen born in Peru who immigrated as a child, is six months pregnant with their third child; the couple has a toddler daughter and infant son. After Gabriela led protests outside Delaney Hall calling for his release, guards offered to free Martín if she would stop demonstrating—which he refused—and later confiscated and tore up a drawing their daughter made during a visitation. He was subsequently transferred to Elizabeth Detention Center, where he remains while his wife launches a petition seeking his discretionary release.

Linet Vartanniavartanians, a naturalized U.S. citizen, and her husband Mehrzad Asadi Eidivand, an undocumented Iranian national, were arrested in June 2025 when HSI agents executed a warrant at their Tempe, Arizona home. Vartanniavartanians called 911 and threatened to shoot the agents if they entered; Eidivand possessed firearms as an undocumented immigrant. Both pleaded guilty and were released with time served and two years' probation in late November 2025. However, Eidivand was immediately re-detained by ICE and held at Imperial Regional Detention Facility in Calexico for three months. His attorney reports ICE has pressured him to sign a deportation order to Iran without legal representation, despite him facing an execution order there due to his opposition to Iran's Islamist regime. The attorney believes ICE is retaliating against the family over his brother's hunger strike in immigration detention.

Soraya, a pseudonym for a Ghanaian woman, fled to the United States in 2024 after her family discovered her sexual orientation and people sought to harm her. She was granted a US withholding of removal, a protection measure meant to prevent her from being sent back to a country where she would face persecution. Despite this status, she was deported to Cameroon on January 15, 2026, on the first flight of third-country removals, a country she says does not accept LGBT people and whose anti-homosexuality laws are harsher than Ghana's. She said she and other deportees were held like prisoners at a shelter and unable to leave until they staged a hunger strike. "I was thinking they were going to protect me rather than sending me to a third country that will not accept me," she said. She now hopes to obtain asylum in Cameroon.

Karam, a detainee with a chronic stomach ulcer, was transferred from Mesa Verde ICE facility to the California City ICE Detention Facility in late August 2025. Despite informing intake staff of his ulcer, prescribed liquid diet, and daily medications, he received no medication during his first 24 hours and subsequently received wrong pills infrequently. As his health declined, he began a hunger strike on September 18th. By September 22nd he was vomiting blood; he fainted the next day, triggering a medical emergency. Staff conditioned his medication on ending the strike. After ending the strike, he was told to "go back" to his country for medical care and has not received proper treatment. Three months later, his condition has worsened with mouth ulcers, continued blood vomiting, and blood in stool. He has gone on three additional hunger strikes since September.

Martin G., a 66-year-old Cuban man and testicular cancer survivor who has had a partial lung removal, was detained at Camp East Montana from September 2025. Despite daily written and verbal requests, he was never taken to see medical staff during his months of detention. His conditions worsened — he experienced severe headaches, trouble breathing, low oxygen levels, and lightheadedness. 'I'm scared that I will die here,' he said. When he engaged in a hunger strike to bring attention to his medical needs, guards tried to force him to eat on at least three occasions and then placed him in solitary confinement for seven days as punishment. His wife said: 'I pray for my husband's health every day. I pray that he will live and that I will be able to hug him again.'

ICE told Somali asylum seekers they were being deported to Somalia, but instead flew them to the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where several remain detained. Sakariye Abdi Mohamed, a truck driver with no criminal record, was stopped by an Alabama trooper and held nearly a year in Louisiana before being flown to Guantánamo; a colleague described him as a hardworking 'rookie truck driver' who did everything right. Adam Abdullah, a 31-year-old mechanic with a pending asylum case and work permit, was stopped in Minnesota during 'Operation Metro Surge' and moved through facilities in three states over nine months before arriving at Guantánamo, where he has limited attorney access and brief, possibly monitored phone calls. Fellow detainees Abdullahi Adam Mohamed, a mechanic and small business owner, and Hassan Abdi Abtidoon, a former rideshare driver turned back while seeking asylum in Canada, were also transferred there. Detainees describe being shackled at all times, held in frigid conditions with cameras in bathrooms, and have held hunger strikes; family members call the ordeal 'shocking and frightening.' DHS has claimed the group included 'some of the worst of the worst' with criminal histories, though this reflects the agency's allegation rather than confirmed fact.

Recently obtained 911 calls from Alligator Alcatraz, an undocumented migrant detention facility in the Florida Everglades, include approximately 70 calls. These calls included requests for emergency medical services for medical incidents with injuries and health concerns, with approximately 30 being accidental calls from staff. The facility has faced lawsuits over conditions. Reports indicate detainees staged a hunger strike to protest conditions, which DHS denied.

Detainees at a South Florida immigration detention center nicknamed "Alligator Alcatraz" have been on a hunger strike for ten days, protesting living conditions. One detainee, Pedro Hernández, was hospitalized during the strike but continues to refuse food, citing conditions and treatment. Civil rights groups have filed lawsuits stating detainees lack access to legal counsel, food, hygiene, and medical care.

Yury Saaryan, a Russian national who overstayed his tourist visa, went to an ICE office in August 2025 seeking help returning to Russia but was detained instead. An immigration judge granted him voluntary departure in November 2025, but ICE has not arranged his removal despite his repeated requests and three hunger strikes. ICE cites delays in obtaining travel documents from the Russian government, while Saaryan and his attorney say the Russian Embassy could issue documents within two days if he were permitted to visit in person.

Rakesh Rakesh, an Indian national detained at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, was granted voluntary departure to India. On May 31, 2025, ICE officers escorted him to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and mistakenly placed him on an Alaska Airlines flight to Sitka, Alaska instead of his intended connecting flight through New York to India. Flight attendants alerted ICE officers to the error, but officers directed his boarding anyway. Upon landing in Sitka, the Alaska Airlines captain assisted Rakesh and arranged his return to Seattle. However, ICE re-detained him upon arrival rather than allowing him to continue to India. He remained in the Tacoma detention center for 16 additional days, during which he undertook a hunger strike, before being released and facilitated to depart for India on June 17, 2025.

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.