Human Impact Project

In New Orleans, ICE called a trans-Latina immigrant advocate and community organizer into the field office after telling her they wanted to offer her less restrictive monitoring in recognition of her community leadership. She was detained when she arrived at her check-in and held at a Louisiana ICE jail, where she says she was denied medical care, placed in solitary confinement, and subjected to verbal and transphobic harassment. She had received the Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center annual human rights award in 2024 and was in the process of obtaining a visa for trafficking survivors. She was later deported to Mexico, a country she had never lived in before, and is now working to rebuild her life there while recovering from infections she says went untreated during detention.

In Maryland, ICE agents arrested a transgender woman married to a U.S. citizen after she appeared for a routine probation check-in. She was then transferred to an all-male detention facility in Miami even though her lawyers said they had provided a passport listing her gender as female. When her attorney objected to her being held with men, ICE responded in writing that "as per executive order, your client's immutable, biological, classification is that of a male." The White House later posted about her case on social media, and her lawyers say they no longer know her current location.

Ana Cañedo Luna, a business owner and long-term U.S. resident who was brought to the country at age 10, was arrested on January 9 after a traffic stop in Rock Springs, Wyoming, where she holds a valid work permit. She was transferred to the ICE Denver Contract Detention Facility in Aurora, Colorado, where she spent five months and ten days in custody. Cañedo discovered that her previous lawyer had requested a voluntary departure without her knowledge or consent, prompting her to change legal representation. After switching to local attorneys and filing a writ of habeas corpus, she was released on June 19 and reunited with her wife, Gloria Guerra. Cañedo continues to fight her immigration case while dealing with the psychological trauma of her detention and remains fearful of future arrest, saying the experience felt like "psychological torture" and a "never-ending nightmare."