Human Impact Project

Katherin Guillen-Acosta was arrested in Durham County on June 24, 2025, for failing to appear in court on two 2022 traffic misdemeanors, and a magistrate set her bond at $1,000 while also beginning a process to refer her to ICE, even though her charges did not require referral under North Carolina's new law. After her bond was posted, ICE took her into custody, and she has described poor conditions at the detention center, including inadequate food and mistreatment. Speaking from the Stewart Detention Center in Georgia, she said, "The criminals are outside, and the innocent are inside." An investigation found Durham County magistrates and judges have repeatedly referred people facing low-level charges to ICE this year when not required to, with at least four such cases resulting in detention. Her brother, Wildin Guillen-Acosta, was previously detained by ICE a decade earlier while a high school student and held at the same facility.

Johnny Noviello, a 49-year-old Canadian lawful permanent resident who had lived in Florida for nearly four decades, died on June 23, 2025, while in ICE custody at the Federal Detention Center Miami. He was arrested by ICE on May 15 in Daytona Beach following a 2023 drug trafficking conviction and was transferred to the Miami facility on May 19 to await removal proceedings. During his roughly five-week detention, Noviello—who had epilepsy, hypertension, and mental health concerns—reported symptoms including dizziness, convulsions, and abnormal vital signs but did not receive adequate medical monitoring or treatment. He was found unresponsive and pronounced dead after emergency response efforts failed. An autopsy determined he died from acute kidney failure caused by calcium oxalate crystal deposits, which six kidney specialists concluded was preventable and treatable through dialysis had symptoms been addressed. A complaint alleges Bureau of Prisons medical staff failed to properly evaluate, document, or create a treatment plan for him. The FBI is investigating his death.

Pedro Vasquez Perdomo, a 54-year-old Latino man, has lived in Pasadena, California for decades and works as a day laborer in construction while managing diabetes. On June 18, 2025, at 5:30 a.m., he was waiting at a Metro stop near Orange Grove Boulevard and Los Robles Avenue with coworkers to be picked up for a construction job when four large black vehicles with tinted windows arrived. Armed men wearing masks but no visible badges or identification emerged with guns and surrounded him and his coworkers. Perdomo was handcuffed without being informed of any warrant and stated his right to remain silent in English. He was taken to a CVS parking lot where officers searched his pockets, found his expired foreign consular ID, and placed him in a car. He was transported to a detention center in Los Angeles where he was held in a crowded room with 52 others, given minimal food and water, and provided no medical attention for six days despite his diabetes requiring daily medication management. He was then transferred to Adelanto detention facility where he remains shackled and continues to experience health deterioration and psychological distress. Vasquez Perdomo is challenging his detention and the conditions thereof through this litigation.

Caroline Dias Goncalves, a 19-year-old University of Utah nursing student from Brazil, was detained by ICE on June 5, 2025, following a traffic stop by a Mesa County Sheriff's deputy on Interstate 70 near Fruita, Colorado. The deputy shared information about her in a group chat used for drug interdiction efforts, which ICE agents then used to target her for immigration enforcement. Goncalves, who immigrated to the U.S. at age 7 and has a pending asylum application, was held at an ICE facility in Aurora, Colorado for 15 days, where she reported receiving poor quality food and confusing schedules, and observed differential treatment based on English proficiency. She was released on bond on June 20, 2025, and became a named plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against ICE leadership.

Ana Cañedo Luna, co-owner of Don Chingonas food truck and Club Elite nightclub in Rock Springs, Wyoming, was detained by ICE on January 9, 2025, following a traffic stop over a license plate registration error, despite holding valid work authorization. She was held four days at the Sweetwater County Detention Center before being transferred to the ICE Denver Contract Detention Facility in Aurora, Colorado, where her case was later moved to the Board of Immigration Appeals in Virginia. Cañedo, who came to the United States at age 10, discovered her previous attorney had requested a voluntary departure without her knowledge or consent, prompting her to switch to local attorneys and file a writ of habeas corpus. After five months and ten days in custody, she was released on June 19 and reunited with her wife, Gloria Guerra. Cañedo said she has continuously pursued U.S. citizenship and described the detention as 'psychological torture' and a 'never-ending nightmare,' adding that she remains fearful of future arrest while continuing to fight her immigration case.

Migrant families with young children, including toddlers, were held for days and sometimes weeks in US Customs and Border Protection facilities with jail-like conditions, according to interviews conducted by attorneys and submitted to federal court. The filings reveal details of families detained in 2025 in border facilities not designed for that purpose, including cases where children were held for over 40 days in crowded rooms without windows. Attorneys argue CBP detention violates the 1997 Flores settlement agreement, which requires children be released without unnecessary delay and dictates conditions of custody.

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.

The Burleigh-Morton Detention Center in Bismarck, North Dakota, currently holds about 10 to 11 people for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a small fraction of its roughly 400 total population, officials said. The facility serves more than 20 local, state and federal agencies, including the U.S. Marshals Service and Bureau of Prisons, and is not dedicated to immigration detention. ICE detainees are typically housed there for one to two weeks before release or transfer, and most are classified at a minimum security level. Earlier in 2025, seventeen ICE detainees were held at the facility as the agency exceeded its congressionally funded 41,500 detention beds nationwide, holding over 48,000 people.

Four detainees escaped from Delaney Hall, a privately-owned immigration detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, on June 12-13, 2025, by breaking through inadequately constructed interior and exterior walls. The escape occurred amid reports of disorder at the facility, including complaints about delayed meals, poor conditions, overcrowding, and unhygienic facilities. Two of the escapees—Joel Enrique Sandoval-Lopez from Honduras and Joan Sebastian Castaneda-Lozada from Colombia—were recaptured by federal authorities by June 12-13. Two others—Franklin Norberto Bautista-Reyes and Andres Felipe Pineda-Mogollon, a Colombian national—remained at large as of mid-June, with the FBI offering up to $10,000 for information leading to their arrests. All four face federal charges of escape from custody. DHS stated the escapees have criminal histories, and facility management announced plans to move detainees out over the following 24 hours.

Javier Diaz Santana, a 32-year-old deaf DACA recipient with no criminal history, was arrested by ICE agents during a raid at a car wash in Temple City, California on June 12, 2025. Despite being deaf and unable to communicate, agents confiscated his phone and wallet, handcuffed him, and transported him to an El Paso detention center without explaining his detention or accommodating his disability. He was released on July 8 after his attorney provided proof of his DACA status to authorities.

Douglas Menjivar, a 50-year-old Salvadoran immigrant and activist who exposed sexual assault in immigration detention, was arrested by ICE in June 2025 during a routine check-in despite being married to a U.S. citizen and having a reopened legal case. After being detained at Montgomery County ICE facility and struggling with mental health issues, Menjivar and his wife decided he would voluntarily depart to Spain rather than face deportation, leaving behind his wife who had lived in the U.S. her entire life.

Valentina Galvis, a Colombian asylum seeker, went to Chicago Immigration Court on June 5, 2025, expecting a hearing after her husband Camilo had been granted asylum in the same court two weeks earlier; the couple had fled far-right paramilitary violence in Colombia in 2022, and Galvis had survived a brutal assault by the group. Instead, federal prosecutors moved to dismiss her case, and plainclothes agents detained her immediately after she left the courtroom. Galvis and her seven-month-old son Naythan, a U.S. citizen, were taken by ICE contractor MVM Inc. to a Sonesta hotel near O'Hare Airport, where they were confined to a two-room suite for five days under constant guard, with the phone removed and no information given about their whereabouts. ICE's online locator falsely showed Galvis being held more than 700 miles away in Washington, D.C. Her attorney filed a habeas corpus petition, and a judge ordered she not be removed from Illinois, but ICE did not inform her of this. She was released on the fifth day to ICE's Intensive Supervision Appearance Program office and fitted with an electronic monitoring bracelet; her asylum case dismissal is now on appeal with a new case pending.

A man who has lived in the U.S. since leaving Kazakhstan in 1991 and is not a citizen of any country has no criminal record and owns a home and business. He was detained by ICE in June 2025 and held at the Torrance County Detention Facility in New Mexico while challenging his indefinite detention through a federal habeas corpus petition. On December 29, 2025, a U.S. Magistrate Judge recommended that the court grant his petition, finding he is being indefinitely detained without a significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future, as required under Supreme Court precedent. The case remains before the district court for final disposition.

Randy Mesa Padrón, a 30-year-old Cuban barber, was detained by ICE on June 3, 2025, immediately after an immigration judge dismissed his asylum case without hearing his attorney's arguments. Mesa had entered the U.S. legally in February 2022 with an I-220A parole form and attended all required appointments. ICE officers were waiting in the courthouse hallway and arrested him as he left, transferring him first to a detention center in Pompano Beach where he was pressured to sign a voluntary deportation order within 24 hours, which he refused. He was later moved to Adams County Correctional Center in Mississippi. His wife launched a GoFundMe campaign that raised over $5,000 for legal defense, while his attorney pursued an appeal and habeas corpus petition challenging the detention. As of June 2025, Mesa remained in custody over a year after his initial detention.

On June 6, 2024, federal immigration agents conducted a raid on Ambiance Apparel, a garment factory in downtown Los Angeles, arresting over 40 workers, many from Zapotec Indigenous communities. The operation separated families and triggered legal challenges and advocacy organizing. One year later, affected workers and families continue to face economic hardship, emotional trauma, and pending immigration proceedings. Advocates including Lucha Zapoteca secured the release of 11 of 14 initially detained family members and raised over $300,000 in support, though some workers remain in federal custody and others have been deported.

Marina Lopez, a woman seeking asylum from Guatemala, was detained by ICE on June 4, 2025, during a routine check-in appointment and spent seven months in a Kentucky detention center. The federal government provided no evidence or explanation for her detention, and she was released on December 23, 2025, after a judge found the government had no record justifying her continued imprisonment. During her detention, her church community provided extensive support to her family, organizing fundraising, childcare, and daily assistance.

Maria Isidro, a 52-year-old Mexican immigrant and wife of pastor Josafat Isidro of Centro de Adoración Vida Nueva in Live Oak, Florida, was detained and deported after a June 3 immigration check-in she believed was routine, despite holding an annual stay of deportation since arriving in the U.S. in 1998. Her daughter, Daniella Isidro, says the family came to the U.S. on a legal medical visa for a sibling's treatment and complied annually with Homeland Security requirements, pointing to a Social Security card issued to Maria in 2015. The Department of Homeland Security states Isidro received a final removal order in 2004 after missing a court date and had evaded deportation for two decades, and denies family claims that she was denied medical care in custody. Isidro was held for eight days before being transported to Matamoros, Mexico on June 11, and has been married 31 years with four children and a husband remaining in Florida.

Arzou Hami, an Iranian woman suffering from serious mental health issues, was detained in June 2025 as part of a sweep of Iranian migrants following U.S. military action against Iran. She was detained by Buffalo ICE agents at the Niagara County Jail before being transferred to Texas. Her attorney alleged in court filings that her detention prevented her from receiving mental health medications. Her attorney reported she has received some medication, but it is not the same as what she was previously prescribed.

Erasmo Zavala, a Berks County father who had applied for a U visa after cooperating with law enforcement in the investigation into his daughter's murder, was detained by ICE in April 2025 despite his pending humanitarian visa application. During his nearly two-month detention, he was repeatedly shackled at his hands and feet and flown between facilities, including Moshannon Valley Processing Center and a facility in Louisiana, often with no explanation of where he was being taken. He said he was awakened in the middle of the night twice and driven to the airport, fearing deportation to Mexico. Zavala said, 'They treat you as if you really were some kind of criminal. But what kind of criminal dedicates himself to his family and mostly goes from work to home?' He was released following a court order from Judge Stephanie Haines, with his case tied to a dispute over a Trump administration policy rescinding protections for crime victims and witnesses cooperating with law enforcement.

A 20-year-old Ecuadorian woman was detained at 26 Federal Plaza immediately after her first immigration hearing on June 24, where a judge had scheduled her next court date for March 2026. She was held for nine days without charge, without access to an attorney, and without a bed—sleeping on the floor alongside at least 70 other detainees—while lights stayed on, heat was unbearable, and food was minimal, often just cookies thrown into the cell. On July 4 she was transferred to the Richwood Detention Facility in Louisiana before a New York judge could review a habeas corpus petition filed on her behalf, and she was later released from ICE custody following a federal judge's order. She had fled threats and stalking in Ecuador before joining her family in New York in 2024 after crossing into the U.S. at El Paso, and said: "A human being doesn't deserve to be treated that way. They had us in there like animals."