Human Impact Project

A San Diego law firm filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court seeking to stop ICE from arresting asylum seekers at immigration court hearings. The lawsuit argues that courthouse arrests violate constitutional rights and due process and impact the immigration court system. The suit was filed on behalf of two asylum seekers arrested at San Diego's immigration court, both of whom had no criminal records and regularly attended their hearings.

Three individuals—an immigrant detained by ICE in the Northern District of California, a second immigrant detained by ICE in the same district, and a third immigrant detained by ICE in the same district—were detained by ICE in the Northern District of California. The court granted a preliminary injunction on November 5, 2025, prohibiting respondents from detaining the petitioners without a pre-detention hearing before a neutral decisionmaker and preventing their transfer out of the district without court approval. The court found the petitioners raised serious legal questions regarding the legality of their detention under the circumstances presented.

On September 4, 2025, roughly 60 armed and masked federal agents from Homeland Security Investigations, ICE, CBP and local sheriff's offices raided the Nutrition Bar Confectioners plant in Cato, New York. Officers broke down a locked bathroom door on female employees, herded over 100 workers into a break room, and separated them by citizenship status without individualized suspicion, questioning pregnant employees and parents worried about children waiting at home. At least 57 workers were arrested, more than 20 were separated from their children, and some were denied access to attorneys or family before being sent to out-of-state detention facilities. Pedro Rojas, a U.S. citizen who was seized and interrogated, said agents targeted him and his coworkers because they are Latino. Only five of those arrested faced criminal charges, the most serious being unlawful reentry, and two plaintiffs were deported, though one has since been allowed to reenter the country. The NYCLU and the Worker Justice Center of New York filed a class action lawsuit against DHS alleging officers exceeded their search warrants and violated workers' Fourth Amendment rights.

The Trump administration attempted to repatriate 76 Guatemalan children from U.S. government custody in overnight operations. Children were woken from their beds and reported crying and vomiting. A federal judge temporarily blocked the removals after attorneys argued the government violated U.S. law protecting unaccompanied minors from deportation without due process. The children were returned to shelters after being placed on planes. Declarations indicated many had not requested to return and stated they feared danger if sent back to Guatemala.

A 19-year-old man identified only as ELA was deported to El Salvador this week while detained at a Louisiana immigration facility awaiting a psychological evaluation for his asylum case, according to his attorneys. It was the second time this year he was removed from the U.S. in violation of court orders protecting a class of young asylum seekers who sued in 2019 for the right to have their claims heard while remaining in the country. He had previously been deported earlier this year but was returned to the Louisiana detention center after attorneys confirmed his class membership. A federal judge ordered the government to explain the removal and how it plans to rectify the error, and the Justice Department said it only learned of his removal after being alerted by class attorneys.

Jessica Chodor was tackled and assaulted by a Memphis Safe Task Force officer while attempting to film a traffic stop. She was held down on the ground, threatened with a taser, and arrested on a charge of "resisting official detention," which was later dropped. The incident left her fearful of continuing to document task force operations; she now avoids filming unless other observers are present. Chodor is a plaintiff in an ACLU lawsuit challenging the task force's pattern of intimidation and retaliation against community observers.

Hunter Demster, who runs a soup kitchen in Memphis, has faced sustained intimidation and retaliation from officers with the Memphis Safe Task Force while attempting to document immigration enforcement operations. Demster has been taunted by officers, had bright lights shined at him, been followed in his car, and had an officer swerve toward him in a parking lot, missing him by inches. Agents sometimes sit in vehicles outside his house. Demster and other community observers have filed an ACLU lawsuit alleging that task force agents—including DHS officers, other law enforcement agencies, and National Guard—are engaged in a pattern of intimidation and retaliation that violates First Amendment rights to record police.

Ismael Cerro, a 39-year-old Mexican national who immigrated to the U.S. over a decade ago, was detained by immigration authorities during a traffic stop on his way to work in September 2025. He spent two months in ICE custody at Alligator Alcatraz and Krome detention centers. Cerro filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's blanket policy that classified undocumented immigrants found in the U.S. as ineligible for bond hearings. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in his favor in May 2026, determining the policy unlawful and restoring bond eligibility for detainees in Florida, Alabama, and Georgia.

A U.S. judge blocked the government from deporting Guatemalan children who had crossed the border without their families. The children were already on the tarmac awaiting deportation when the court order was issued.

On August 16, 2025, ICE conducted enforcement operations at a Home Depot and car wash in Anaheim, detaining at least five people despite a federal court order prohibiting indiscriminate sweeps. At the Euclid Car Wash, ICE deployed tear gas against a crowd of bystanders and arrested Isaac Dominguez, an uninvolved Black bystander who was there to wash his car, after he reportedly confronted the agents.

US Border Patrol agents conducted a raid outside a Home Depot in Los Angeles's Westlake neighborhood using an unmarked Penske rental truck, with masked officers jumping out and arresting 16 people. The operation, called 'Operation Trojan Horse,' occurred despite a federal court order prohibiting indiscriminate raids in the region due to evidence of racial profiling and targeting based on appearance, language, and location.

A Trump-appointed federal judge ordered Florida officials to produce legal agreements justifying their authority to detain approximately 1,000 migrants at the detention camp in the Everglades by Thursday. Civil rights groups allege detainees are being held without formal charges, denied access to legal counsel, and stripped of bond hearings, with some held beyond the legal 14-day limit. The state and federal governments lack clarity on jurisdiction and legal custody over the facility.

Mireille Desormeaux, a Haitian green card holder, became a U.S. citizen in early August after suing the federal government with Project Citizenship over delayed naturalization. USCIS had frozen naturalization proceedings for applicants from 39 countries deemed 'high risk,' including Haiti, Venezuela, and Côte d'Ivoire. Twelve of the 14 plaintiffs in the lawsuit have since become citizens after months of unexplained delays.

The NYCLU, ACLU, and other legal organizations filed a federal lawsuit challenging ICE's policy of arresting immigrants who attend mandatory immigration court hearings. The lawsuit claims the Trump administration's practice violates the Administrative Procedure Act and due process rights, as people are being arrested when complying with legal obligations to appear in court and then fast-tracked for deportation.

Carmen Aracely Pablo Sequen was arrested by ICE agents as she was leaving San Francisco immigration court on July 31, 2025, and detained at ICE's San Francisco field office. She filed a habeas corpus petition the next day seeking her immediate release and a permanent injunction prohibiting ICE from re-detaining her without prior notice and a hearing before a neutral arbiter. After the court granted preliminary injunctive relief, she amended her petition to add three additional plaintiffs—Ligia Garcia, Yulisa Alvarado Ambrocio, and Martin Hernandez Torres—who also sought individual habeas relief. The amended complaint added seven class action claims seeking to vacate certain ICE and EOIR policies under the Administrative Procedure Act and to enjoin allegedly unconstitutional conditions of confinement at ICE's San Francisco field office. The government moved to sever the individual habeas claims from each other and from the class claims. The court granted the motion to sever but denied the government's request to randomly reassign the severed cases to other judges.

Three Cuban nationals filed a lawsuit challenging U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's use of I-220A forms to release them without proper parolee status. The plaintiffs, who were apprehended upon entry and subject to mandatory detention, allege ICE unlawfully misclassified their immigration status, which excluded them from eligibility for adjustment of status under the Cuban Adjustment Act. The case raises claims of Administrative Procedure Act violations, Fifth Amendment due process violations, and ultra vires agency action.

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.

During an immigration sweep on June 19 outside a Lowe's store in Pacoima, Border Patrol agents arrested a 54-year-old woman selling tamales. She suffered a heart attack during the detention after agents bear-hugged her to the point she struggled to breathe. A U.S. citizen recording the incident was also arrested and detained. A federal judge later ruled the sweeps violated the 4th Amendment due to racial profiling.

ICE fabricated its authority for over a year to arrest individuals attending legally mandated immigration court hearings at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan. A May 2025 ICE guidance memo that agents used to justify the arrests did not actually apply to immigration courts, according to a letter filed by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York in March 2026. The agency conducted mass arrests and separated families under false legal pretenses, with agents stalking immigrants in courthouse hallways and transferring detainees across the country to prevent them from meeting with lawyers. The revelation prompted civil rights organizations to request the federal court reconsider its prior denial of a stay on the arrests.