Human Impact Project

A Guatemalan citizen who had been released on bond and granted withholding of removal in 2013 was detained on March 24, 2026 during a routine ICE check-in. He had fully complied with his supervision order for over 12 years with no new criminal history. ICE agents told him he was being arrested because of the new administration and they would find a third country if they couldn't send him to Guatemala. The court granted a temporary restraining order requiring his immediate release.

A Honduran national who had been living in the U.S. for over a decade with protection under the Convention Against Torture was detained by ICE during a routine check-in on March 23, 2026. He had been living free under an Order of Supervision for 14 years without any violations. The court granted his temporary restraining order and ordered his immediate release, finding that ICE violated his due process rights by detaining him without proper notice or hearing.

An Iranian native who entered the U.S. as a child in 1993 and was granted withholding of removal in 1999 was detained by ICE at Los Angeles International Airport on March 18, 2026 while attempting to fly to Chicago for his father-in-law's funeral. He had been on supervised release for over 12 years and is married to a U.S. citizen with two U.S. citizen children. The court granted his temporary restraining order and ordered his immediate release, finding that ICE failed to follow proper procedures for revoking his supervised release.

Andrei Bankevich, a Belarusian asylum seeker granted relief from deportation to Belarus under the Convention Against Torture, was arrested on a drunken driving charge in Minnesota in February 2025 and transferred to ICE custody. After ICE detention facilities filled during Operation Metro Surge, he was transferred to Muscatine County Jail in Iowa in December 2025. ICE claimed it had been working on potential third-country removals for Bankevich since September 2025, but provided no documentation. Federal Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger ruled on March 11, 2026, that ICE illegally detained Bankevich beyond the six-month limit in violation of federal law and his due process rights, calling his jailing "prolonged and seemingly interminable" and ordering his immediate release.

Alisa Ramdial Shahib, a 46-year-old from Trinidad and Tobago who immigrated to the U.S. at age 19, has been detained by ICE at Chase County Detention Center since March 2026. Despite being granted a withholding of removal under the Convention Against Torture by a federal judge—a legal protection that bars her deportation to Trinidad and Tobago due to fears of persecution—DHS continues to detain her while searching for a third country willing to accept her. Shahib is separated from her U.S. citizen husband Secah, a PGA golf instructor, and her two children, one of whom is attending college. Over her decades in the U.S., she worked in modeling and commercial cleaning. Prior drug trafficking convictions prevent her from pursuing legal status. She communicates with her family through drawings mailed from detention while dealing with undisclosed medical issues, and her family remains uncertain about her final destination.

Olman, a father of two from Central America who fled gang violence and death threats in his home country, was detained at an ICE voluntary check-in in Richmond in June 2025 and held at Caroline Detention Facility for nine months despite having no criminal record. His application for withholding of removal was denied, but he appealed. A federal judge ruled in March 2026 that the government unlawfully detained him beyond six months and noted that DHS appeared to falsify a notice claiming it was served before his detention. The judge ordered his release, and Olman was reunited with his wife Leyla and their two children in Staunton. His wife's asylum case was also opposed by DHS, and they were ordered to self-deport by April, though they appealed and remain in the country in a precarious legal situation. Olman has since returned to construction work but experienced psychological trauma during detention and fears an upcoming ICE check-in later in the year.

A Chinese national who arrived in the U.S. in 2014 on a visitor's visa was detained by ICE at the Adelanto Detention Facility on February 13, 2026. He has lived in the United States for over eleven years, has a wife and two U.S. citizen children ages 4 and 1, and has a pending asylum case seeking protection under the Convention Against Torture. The court ordered his immediate release and enjoined the government from re-detaining him without a proper bond hearing.

An Indonesian citizen with withholding of removal status was detained at an airport and transferred to Adelanto Detention Facility in February 2026 after almost 18 years of compliance with his Order of Supervision. He was not told why his supervision was being revoked or given an opportunity to address allegations. The court granted his TRO application and ordered his immediate release.

Roberto Betancourt, a Venezuelan journalist who fled to Miami with his wife in 2014 after years of armed attacks and death threats from pro-government colectivos over his political reporting, produced political analysis of Latin America in the U.S. alongside exiled journalist Patricia Poleo. An immigration judge granted him deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture in 2024, barring his return to Venezuela. Under a February 2025 DHS directive to re-detain people with CAT protections for third-country removal, ICE took him into custody on July 14, 2025, and over six months transferred him between 12 detention facilities, holding him in shackles for up to 25 hours and in rooms so cramped detainees took turns lying down. Agents tried to push him across the border at Tijuana in December 2025, then tried to force him onto a plane to Venezuela at Arizona's Mesa Gateway airport until a U.S. Marshal intervened. On January 26, 2026, four armed agents at the Nogales port of entry told him "they'll deport you with punches if it's necessary"; he refused to sign the removal notice but was forced onto a Mexican bus and arrived at Tapachula's Siglo XXI migration center on January 28, where deportees were given ten days to seek refugee status or leave Mexico. He later won permission to travel to Mexico City, where he applied for refugee status and launched a sports journalism platform while his wife, seven-year-old son, and ten-year-old daughter remain in Miami. As of September 2026, he remains in Mexico still awaiting resolution of his case, which is among roughly 20,000 third-country removals to Mexico carried out under the policy. "I need to find a way to guarantee stability for my family, for my kids," he said.

Carlos, a Venezuelan national with withholding of removal and work authorization, was detained on January 28, 2026, during a routine monthly check-in at the Kansas City ICE office where he was required to report under the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program. Despite his judge-approved protection, valid work authorization, clean six-year record, and pending permanent legal status applications with his wife, ICE detained him. After a chaotic series of transfers across Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, and Arizona—during which he was held in overcrowded conditions—Carlos was deported to Mexico on a tarmac in Arizona, where he remains separated from his wife and children.

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, but was deported to Cameroon on January 15, 2026, alongside two other Ghanaian LGBTQ+ women, on the first flight of third-country removals. She and others described being shackled during the journey, with one saying, "I felt like a terrorist because what on earth did I do to be shackled like that." The deportees were held for about two months at a government compound in Yaounde and only allowed to leave after staging a hunger strike; they must now return to the compound by sundown and are barred from working while their asylum applications in Cameroon remain pending. Their lawyer, Fru Joseph, has raised concerns that the women face a heightened risk of persecution in a country they have no ties to.

Brenda Beatriz Organiz-Perez De Lorenzo, a Guatemalan woman and her two minor children, petitioned for review after being denied asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture. She fled Guatemala in February 2019 after receiving threatening phone calls demanding money. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals denied her petition, finding she failed to establish eligibility for relief on multiple grounds including lack of nexus between the threats and her claimed protected social group.

Zahra Razavinik, a 66-year-old Iranian immigrant, has taught preschoolers at Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church in Houston for nearly 30 years and cared for her husband with a heart condition. She was detained by ICE in January 2026 during a routine immigration check-in and has been held at El Valle Detention Center in Raymondville, Texas for six months. Her attorneys argue she cannot safely return to Iran because she is Christian and faces persecution there, and that no other country has agreed to accept her. A 2006 immigration judge's order had previously granted her a stay of deportation due to risk of persecution as a Christian.

Khadija (also referred to by the pseudonym Abina), a bisexual woman from Ghana, fled her country fearing for her life after she and her family were persecuted because of her sexual orientation. She crossed the U.S. border in December 2024 to seek asylum and was detained at the Eloy detention center in Arizona. Denied eligibility for asylum only because of the "circumvention of lawful pathways" regulation, she proved to an immigration judge that she was a refugee and was granted withholding of removal in July 2025. Instead of releasing her, ICE continued to detain her and told her she would be sent to Cameroon — a country she had never been to and where homosexuality is also criminalized. When she requested a fear interview and refused to sign voluntary deportation papers, an ICE officer told her to "get the fuck out of my face." In January 2026 she was placed on a flight in shackles around her wrists, ankles, and waist, with stopovers in Louisiana and Senegal, and deported to Cameroon. There she lives in a crowded room with about ten other women and other third-country nationals, lacking clothing, sanitary pads, and basic hygiene products, and was told she has temporary authorization to remain for only two months. As of July 2026, she remains in limbo, afraid to go outside the building where she is housed and unable to return to Ghana, where she fears persecution.

Kamel Maklad, a Syrian man who migrated through Venezuela, was released from Eloy Detention Center on December 9, 2025, after spending 14 months detained. He had won his immigration court case in November 2024 where he was granted withholding of removal. His release came after a federal judge granted a habeas corpus petition filed on his behalf.

Juan Barilla, 35, a peasant farmer from San Miguelito in Nicaragua's Río San Juan department, spent 29 months imprisoned after being kidnapped by paramilitaries in 2020, and was among 222 political prisoners the Ortega-Murillo government expelled to the United States in February 2023, stripping him of his nationality. He resettled in Louisiana with humanitarian parole and a work permit, but was arrested by local police on April 5, 2025 for driving under the influence; even after a judge ordered his release following his 112-day sentence, he was held because of an ICE appointment, and ICE took him into custody in July 2025. Representing himself without a lawyer through several immigration court hearings on his pending asylum case, he said he was never allowed to present notarized evidence of his imprisonment and torture in Nicaragua. In October 2025, prosecutors sought protection for him under the Convention Against Torture with removal to Honduras rather than asylum, and he was deported there on November 29, 2025, describing being shackled at the hands, feet and waist 'like a criminal.' He is now under temporary UNHCR protection in Honduras and says he fears transnational retaliation from the Nicaraguan regime.

Kevin Isaac Montoya Palacios, a citizen of El Salvador with withholding of removal protection granted in September 2023, was arrested by ICE agents in December 2025 during a routine check-in appointment after meeting with ICE officials for over two years. He filed a habeas petition challenging the legality of his detention, which was granted by U.S. District Judge George Russell. However, the judge denied his request for attorneys' fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act, citing the 4th Circuit's position that habeas claims related to immigration detention are not civil actions. The case has been appealed to the Supreme Court.

Britania Uriostegui Rios, a transgender woman, was deported by ICE from Louisiana to Mexico despite a March court order finding she would "more likely than not" face torture or death there. Her attorneys say ICE removed her "without any notice whatsoever," leaving her without medication, identification, money, or a phone, and that she was later found hiding at an unsupportive relative's home. Her lawyers have sued President Trump, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, and other officials, arguing the removal violated her due process rights and a protective order under the Convention Against Torture. Prior to her deportation, ICE had transferred her without notifying her attorneys to an all-men's prison in Louisiana, and had also sought to remove her to El Salvador.

A Slovak national who entered the U.S. in 2015 on a visa waiver and later overstayed was detained by immigration officials near his residence in October 2025 and held at Pike County Correctional Facility in Pennsylvania. He had pending applications for a green card through his U.S. citizen spouse and for work authorization, and later sought asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture, all denied by an immigration judge in March 2026. He says he endured months of physical and mental abuse in detention, and his family said he was removed without notice to them or his attorney; he and his family, working with the ACLU, then filed a federal habeas corpus petition seeking to block his deportation. In July 2026, a federal district court in Pennsylvania ruled it lacked jurisdiction over his claims, dismissed the petition, vacated an earlier temporary stay of removal, and denied his request for a restraining order as moot.

Despite having Convention Against Torture protection barring removal to El Salvador, C.O. was detained by ICE in May 2025 and pressured to accept removal to Mexico. After refusing, ICE transported him to the border and handed him to Mexican authorities, who drove him to Guatemala, which transferred him to El Salvador — all while shackled. Salvadoran authorities threatened to send him to CECOT. His family has had no contact since October 9, 2025.