Human Impact Project

Julio Borrell, a 72-year-old Cuban mechanic who arrived in Florida during the 1980 Mariel boatlift, was arrested during a routine immigration check-in last December after 46 years of never missing an appointment. He was held about four months at the Florida detention facility known as "Alligator Alcatraz," transferred to a processing site in Eloy, Arizona, and then bused nearly two days to Tapachula, Mexico — a city he said he had never heard of, more than 1,100 miles from the nearest U.S. border crossing. Now surviving by patching tires on the street and saving for a room to rent, Borrell is the father of seven U.S.-born children, eleven grandchildren and a great-grandchild whom he can only reach by borrowed phone; he told his daughter, "I won't die in Tapachula." His case is part of a broader U.S. practice, tied to Mexico's Interior Repatriation Programme, of flying deportees far from the border into remote interior cities like Tapachula and Villahermosa.

Cornelio Estrada-Gonzalez, a Guatemalan national living in the U.S. without authorization, was arrested by ICE on Aug. 22 during a targeted enforcement operation in Chantilly, Virginia, after he got out of a car his brother was driving and ran from officers before being caught following a brief foot chase. DHS said his criminal history includes convictions for assault, felony public records forgery, felony identity theft, driving while intoxicated, felony reentry after removal, and possessing or selling a fake driver's license, and that he had previously been deported in 2011 and 2016. He was issued a final removal order on Aug. 22 and deported three days later.

Victor Martinez Nieto and his 5-year-old son, Liam Tadeo, were detained by ICE agents during a traffic stop in North Austin on August 16, 2026, while driving to a children's soccer game. Video showed Liam crying and clutching his handcuffed father's hands; a family spokesperson said Liam had been due to start kindergarten that week. The two were held together at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, where attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch said officials denied requests to release Liam to his mother in Austin rather than risk him being placed alone in Office of Refugee Resettlement custody. DHS said Martinez Nieto had entered near Laredo in 2022, was arrested in November 2025, and had reentered after a prior deportation. Lawmakers Joaquin Castro, Greg Casar, and James Talarico called for the pair's release and for Dilley's closure, with Castro denied a facility visit. Martinez Nieto agreed to depart voluntarily with his son, and the two were deported to Mexico, reuniting with relatives with help from the Mexican Consulate, while Liam's mother sought ways to reunite with him.

Benito Miranda Hernandez, brought to the U.S. from Mexico as a baby, joined the Navy after 9/11 and served three tours during the Iraq War. His mother, Maria Miranda, said he returned traumatized and unrecognizable, later serving years in prison on felony drug and weapons convictions and probation violations. After his green card was reinstated in November 2025, federal immigration agents detained him in June as he left a reentry halfway house in Barrio Logan, San Diego, where he had completed a sentence and was trying to turn his life around. He is now held at Otay Mesa Detention Center facing possible deportation. Advocates including deported Army veteran Hector Barajas and James L. Smith II say he struggles with PTSD from his deployments, and his case is part of a broader trend of immigrant veterans facing deportation despite military service.

Cristy Maryori Villafranca Trejo, 29, wife of active-duty Army Sgt. Hedár Leonel Turcios Juárez at Fort Bliss, was detained by ICE agents on July 11 outside an El Paso-area Walmart as their 6-year-old U.S. citizen daughter watched masked agents handcuff her. She fled Honduras in 2016 and received a 2017 removal order after missing a court hearing she says she was never notified of; she had no criminal record and served as the family's primary caregiver, including during her husband's nine-month deployment. She was held at Camp East Montana on Fort Bliss, where she and her husband reported an infection, unsanitary conditions and dirty clothing, consistent with a Human Rights Watch report citing excessive force and medical neglect at the facility. Despite a pending Board of Immigration Appeals case and military parole-in-place application, she was deported to Honduras on August 24. Turcios, a naturalized U.S. citizen since 2024, said, "She has been my everything... I'm just asking for my family to be together so I can continue with my military career," and has continued his duties while arranging child care alone and paying for private legal representation. Rep. Veronica Escobar opened a congressional inquiry and visited her in detention, saying her heart "breaks for her, her children and the soldier who must feel so betrayed by the country he is sacrificing for." She is at least the seventh spouse or parent of an active-duty service member deported under the administration's immigration crackdown, according to an Associated Press tally.

Ulises, originally from Veracruz, Mexico, was deported after living in the United States for 30 years, leaving behind his wife and two sons who remain there. He was held at an ICE detention center in Texas before being flown to Tulum with no money, and said he plans to apply for a passport and visa so he can reunite with his family through legal channels.

Santiago, a father from Oaxaca, Mexico, was deported after years of working in the United States and sending remittances that funded his children's education, including one child who recently graduated with a specialty in gastronomy. He was held at an ICE detention center in Texas before being flown to Tulum without money or belongings, and relied on relatives to pay for a flight home.

David, from Querétaro, Mexico, was deported after working in the United States for more than two years to repay a $16,000 debt he borrowed to make the trip north. He was held at an ICE detention center in Texas before being flown to Tulum, arriving with no money or belongings and relying on family and friends to pay for a domestic flight home. He returned to Mexico with no savings and no job.

More than 160 people were deported from the U.S. to Cap-Haïtien, Haiti, on a flight Thursday, the first such deportation since the Trump administration ended Temporary Protected Status for Haitians. The group included TPS holders who had lived and worked legally in the U.S. since 2010, as well as people of Haitian descent born in the Dominican Republic who are not recognized as citizens there. One deportee, Jean Diane Louis, told reporters he left Haiti at age 5, that his family lives in New York City, and that ICE detained him without questioning before sending him back. Upon arrival, Haitian immigration officials offered deportees a maximum of $65 along with food and water, and many said they had nowhere to go and no family remaining in Haiti.

Angel Acosta Ramirez, 43, a former mechanical engineer from Venezuela who later worked as an Uber driver in Branson, was pulled over by the Christian County Sheriff's Office for allegedly speeding near Highlandville in January 2026. Despite holding a valid work visa, he was arrested and jailed on an immigration hold, spending six weeks in the Greene County Jail before being deported. He had fled Venezuela in 2022 with his wife, Maria Fernanda Arrioja Romero, their infant son Santiago, and his parents, believing he had a right to remain in the U.S. Acosta Ramirez said the hardest part of his detention was being separated from his wife and not knowing what would happen to their young son. His wife was later held for months in the same Greene County Jail, which contracts with ICE to detain hundreds of immigrants daily. Acosta Ramirez said life since his deportation has been 'really hard,' with his family now struggling to earn enough money to survive.

Carlos Tellez Sanchez, a 35-year-old Venezuelan man who fled to Dallas, Texas in 2021, worked days at a car dealership and nights delivering for Uber Eats to support his family. He held a 2021 Withholding of Removal order protecting him from deportation to Venezuela and had no criminal record beyond civil immigration violations, but was detained by ICE in December 2025 during what he believed was a routine check-in appointment. After nearly eight months in detention, he was flown in handcuffs to Liberia on August 20, 2026, along with 19 other deportees, nearly 6,000 miles from his wife and newborn U.S. citizen son, whom he has only seen via video calls since the boy's birth. His brother, Juan Tellez, described him as 'a good person and hard worker' who 'doesn't deserve what happened to him.' He said returning to Venezuela is not an option because he fears for his safety there, and he is now staying at a hotel in Liberia while deciding whether to seek asylum there or travel elsewhere.

Christopher Gil Ortíz, who had lived in the U.S. since childhood, was detained by ICE agents in June while on his way to work in Los Angeles and later deported to Mexico, leaving behind his wife and two young children. He was dropped in Tulum, had his belongings stolen in Cancún, and traveled to Mexico City, where he has family, settling in the Tabacalera neighborhood known as 'Little LA.' His sister sent him a TikTok video about New Comienzos, an organization founded by Israel Concha that helps deportees reintegrate, prompting him to seek its support amid what Concha describes as a growing wave of returnees. Since January 2025, the Trump administration has deported an estimated 145,500 Mexicans, according to data cited by The Guardian.

An Oceanside, California man originally from Mexico was shot and killed during a robbery in Tijuana, according to his family. The killing occurred seven months after he was detained and deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Elvis Rodriguez Venturas, a Honduran immigrant who worked in construction in Texas, was deported by ICE to Liberia on a flight that landed Aug. 20, 2026, along with 14 other non-Liberian migrants from Latin America and Africa. An immigration judge had previously barred his deportation to Honduras after finding he could be harmed there, and he had been using that protection to work legally in the U.S. He and other deportees said they were given no advance notice of the move and are now housed in a hotel in a remote coastal area of Liberia. His wife and four children, two of whom are U.S. citizens, remain in Texas, and he said he feels "far away, on the other side of the world."

Leonardo Sánchez Fernández, a 49-year-old Cuban lawful permanent U.S. resident from San Miguel del Padrón who had lived in Lehigh Acres, Florida, was deported by ICE to Equatorial Guinea under a third-country agreement despite holding valid residency until 2030. He had been detained by ICE at a gas station after a drug possession arrest and completing community service, then held at the Alligator Alcatraz facility before being flown for more than 36 hours from Alexandria, Louisiana without being told his destination. During a stopover in Liberia, witnesses said guards shoved him and he fell face-first onto the tarmac, aggravating a preexisting abdominal hernia and intestinal damage from an old stabbing injury and prior surgery. He is now hospitalized in Malabo receiving IV fluids without a passport, documents, consular assistance, toothbrush, or clothes, and may miss a scheduled surgery at Jackson Memorial Hospital. His mother Caridad and sister Dorty, in Lehigh Acres, learned of his location after seeing a video posted from Equatorial Guinea and have been trying to secure his release.

Carlos Rodríguez López, a 35-year-old Cuban man who lived in Miami Gardens after 16 months in ICE detention, was placed on an August 20 deportation flight to Liberia under a U.S.-Liberia removal agreement. He and other detainees refused to disembark, arguing Liberia was not their country and would endanger them; Liberian authorities also refused to accept them. Instead of returning to the U.S. as expected, the plane was diverted to Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, where Rodríguez López and roughly 40 other deportees were met by masked police, searched, and taken to a hotel without passports or legal assistance. His wife, Igrayne Ribot Hernández, a U.S. citizen who runs a family business in Miami Gardens and has a nine-year-old daughter with him, said he had rebuilt his life after serving an 11-month sentence for a prior conviction and called the deportation to a country with no ties to him unlawful and inhumane. A habeas corpus petition filed in November 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana remains unresolved, and Rodríguez López told Univision by video call that he considers the diversion an illegal deportation.

Five people the U.S. attempted to deport to Liberia this week refused to leave the plane upon landing and were instead flown to Equatorial Guinea, according to sources familiar with the incident. The group included three Cuban men, one Brazilian man, and one Cameroonian woman, who were told they would be returned to the U.S. but were instead forced to disembark in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. They are now being held with more than 30 other migrants previously sent there under a similar third-country deportation deal, which human rights groups have criticized for poor conditions and lack of legal aid.

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.

Wilmar Quintero, a 50-year-old transgender woman from Venezuela, fled her home country after she said police officers tortured her, carved out her breast implants and left her for dead for speaking out against civil rights abuses. She sought asylum in the United States and was detained for about three months in Michigan, where she said she was sexually assaulted by another migrant and mistreated by staff. Immigration officials deported her to Venezuela in April 2025, where she went into hiding, saying she remains afraid of police there.

Daniel Fúnez, a Honduran roofer who had lived in the United States for 15 years, was deported and arrived at the Ramón Villeda Morales airport in La Lima, Honduras on August 19, 2026. Fúnez, who moved to the U.S. at age 12 and settled in Hanover, Pennsylvania, said he was linked to a crime committed by a friend and spent five months in a federal prison in Philadelphia before immigration agents took him into custody, moved him to a detention center near Harrisburg, then to Louisiana, and deported him. He left behind his wife, a U.S. citizen daughter of Salvadoran immigrants who was eight months pregnant at the time of his deportation, and said he plans to work in roofing in Honduras while his wife considers joining him there or in El Salvador.