A Democracy Drive Thread
Masked agents, deaths in detention, U.S. citizens shot and detained, toddlers deported — a chronological, sourced record of what Immigration and Customs Enforcement and its sister agencies have done since January 2025, and who paid the price.
Handed a vast budget and arrest quotas to fill, ICE and the Border Patrol became the sharp edge of the administration's mass-deportation drive. This thread is a sourced, chronological record of what that has meant on the ground: U.S. citizens shot, beaten, and detained; children — some of them citizens — deported or hospitalized; a rising toll of deaths in custody that the agency then moved to hide; and agents who, when they crossed the line, were defended rather than disciplined. Every entry links to its sources. The list is not exhaustive — it is a representative record of a pattern.
November 6, 2024
On the ground
GEO gave $1 million to Trump’s super PAC, and its PAC was the first to max out donations to his campaign. GEO and CoreCivic each gave $500,000 to his 2025 inaugural committee — double their 2017 gifts.
January 20, 2025
In the first months of the second term, the administration arrested and detained the parents of more than 11,000 U.S.-citizen children, according to ProPublica — forcing families to choose between separation and taking their American kids to countries they had never known.
January 23, 2025
Genry Ruiz Guillen, a 29-year-old Honduran national, died on January 23, 2025 in ICE custody at the Krome North Service Processing Center in Hialeah, Florida. He died of hyperosmolality, hypernatremia and rhabdomyolysis, among the first detainees to die as the administration rapidly expanded detention.
January 29, 2025
Serawit Gezahegn Dejene, a 45-year-old Ethiopian national, died on January 29, 2025 in ICE custody at the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona. He died of acute respiratory distress, pneumonia and sepsis after being hospitalized in Phoenix.
February 12, 2025
On the ground
Trump rescinded the “sensitive locations” policy, which had restricted arrests at schools, churches and hospitals, in January 2025. The district said students were staying home for fear of raids. A federal judge later turned down the district’s request to block the policy.
February 16, 2025
On the ground
Her lawyer said protocol is to seize the items and issue a fine. A federal judge later released her and ruled she had been unlawfully detained.
February 20, 2025
Maksym Chernyak, a 45-year-old Ukrainian national, died on February 20, 2025 in ICE custody at the Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami, Florida. He suffered a stroke in custody and was pronounced dead at a Miami hospital.
February 23, 2025
Juan Alexis Tineo-Martinez, a 44-year-old Dominican national, died on February 23, 2025 in ICE custody at ICE custody in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He died of a collapsed lung after being taken to a San Juan hospital.
March 10, 2025
In his own words
Khalil, a lawful permanent resident, was not charged with a crime. DHS said he “led activities aligned to Hamas.”
“This is the first arrest of many to come.”
March 15, 2025
Just after midnight on March 15, 2025, Ruben Ray Martinez, a 23-year-old U.S. citizen, drove slowly past officers managing traffic near a crash scene on South Padre Island, Texas, when an ICE Homeland Security Investigations agent fired multiple rounds at him through an open side window, killing him. ICE claimed Martinez had struck an agent with his car — but body-camera footage released by the Texas Department of Public Safety shows nothing of the kind, and the agent who fired was not wearing a camera. Though the death was reported at the time, the government did not disclose that a federal agent had killed him until nearly a year later, when members of Congress demanded a public accounting.
March 25, 2025
On the ground
Video shows the plainclothes officers taking her phone and handcuffing her as she cried out. Rubio confirmed revoking her visa and warned more would follow.
March 27, 2025
On the ground
Days earlier the account had posted photos of Virginia Basora-Gonzalez, a Dominican woman previously deported after a fentanyl conviction, crying in handcuffs in a Philadelphia parking lot.
March 29, 2025
On the ground
She had been arrested three days earlier at a traffic stop near Needles, California. Rep. Pramila Jayapal said initial reports showed agents had not done the required welfare checks. CBP did not follow its own policy of publicly reporting in-custody deaths until the Tucson Sentinel inquired.
April 7, 2025
The administration admitted it had deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father, to a notorious El Salvador mega-prison through what it called an “administrative error” — then fought all the way to the Supreme Court to avoid returning him.
April 9, 2025
In his own words
“We need to get better at treating this like a business,” Lyons said at the Border Security Expo in Phoenix.
“We need to get better at treating this like a business… like Prime, but with human beings.”
April 11, 2025
On the ground
Miller reported $100,000–$250,000 in Palantir shares held in an account for one of his children; at least 11 other White House officials also held the stock. The White House said Miller recused from matters affecting it.
On the ground
The notices came from the mass termination of CBP One parole. CBP said messages may have reached “unintended recipients” when applicants listed others’ email addresses.
April 15, 2025
Trump and his press secretary confirmed the White House was looking for “legal pathways” to send U.S. citizens — whom Trump called “homegrowns” — to El Salvador's mega-prison.
“The homegrowns are next.”
April 16, 2025
DOJ attorney Erez Reuveni was fired after he candidly told a court that Abrego Garcia's deportation had been an error — punished not for the mistake but for admitting it.
Nhon Ngoc Nguyen, a 55-year-old Vietnamese national, died on April 16, 2025 in ICE custody at the El Paso Processing Center in Texas. He was transferred to hospice with dementia, agitation and a pressure ulcer, and died in El Paso.
April 23, 2025
On the ground
Officers told the couple everything looked in order, asked her husband to step outside, and then arrested her. The basis was a 2002 removal order from when she was a minor. Alvarado, a breast cancer survivor with diabetes, was moved to a Louisiana ICE facility to await deportation.
April 25, 2025
A 2-year-old U.S. citizen, identified in court records as “VML,” was deported to Honduras with her mother — in what a federal judge said happened with “no meaningful process” to protect the child's rights. Two other U.S.-citizen children, ages 4 and 7, were sent to Honduras the same week with their mother — the 4-year-old has metastatic cancer and was removed without medication or a chance to consult doctors. Border czar Tom Homan said the children weren’t “deported” because their mothers chose to take them.
Marie Ange Blaise, a 44-year-old Haitian national, died on April 25, 2025 in ICE custody at the Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach, Florida. She died of cardiovascular failure tied to hypertension; her death drew scrutiny over conditions at the facility.
On the ground
Lawyers said the women deported that week were given virtually no chance to reach counsel or family; when Sánchez’s lawyer tried to file papers, ICE said she was already gone.
On the ground
Prosecutors said Dugan steered agents away and let Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, who was in her court on a misdemeanor battery charge, leave through a private jury door. FBI Director Kash Patel announced the arrest on X. In December 2025 a jury acquitted her of concealing Flores-Ruiz but convicted her of felony obstruction. Facing impeachment, she resigned on January 3, 2026, and in June 2026 the trial judge postponed her sentencing indefinitely to weigh overturning the conviction.
April 28, 2025
On the ground
A White House official told Axios the hope was that the posters would be visible in broadcasts from the lawn.
May 2, 2025
In his own words
Border czar Tom Homan suggests Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers could be arrested for telling state employees to consult lawyers before cooperating with ICE. Evers called the threat “chilling” and said, “I haven’t broken the law. I haven’t committed a crime.”
May 3, 2025
House Republicans defeated an amendment that would have explicitly prohibited ICE from detaining U.S. citizens.
May 4, 2025
On the ground
A city councilor recorded an agent driving onto the sidewalk toward her as she filmed.
May 5, 2025
Abelardo Avelleneda-Delgado, a 68-year-old Mexican national, died on May 5, 2025 in ICE custody at the Lowndes County Jail in Valdosta, Georgia. He became unresponsive while being transported to the Stewart Detention Center and could not be revived.
May 12, 2025
On the ground
Whistleblowers told Congress the memo violates the Fourth Amendment and DHS’s own manual. It was shared selectively and later obtained by the Associated Press; it became the subject of lawsuits over warrantless home entries.
May 14, 2025
In his own words
ICE’s public death tracker listed only seven deaths. Lyons said money could be shifted from FEMA or the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to reach 60,000 beds. Rep. Veronica Escobar called detention conditions “tantamount to human rights abuses.”
“ICE will not run out of money.”
May 20, 2025
ICE began arresting migrants as they arrived for their own immigration court hearings — making compliance with the law the moment of capture.
May 21, 2025
On the ground
Miller said Trump would “keep pushing to get that number up higher each and every single day.” The goal was more than 1 million arrests a year.
“We are looking to set a goal of a minimum of 3,000 arrests for ICE every day.”
May 31, 2025
CBP was found to be uploading the DNA of migrants — including children as young as four — into CODIS, the FBI's national criminal DNA database.
June 7, 2025
Jesus Molina-Veya, a 45-year-old Mexican national, died on June 7, 2025 in ICE custody at the Stewart Detention Center in Georgia. He was found unresponsive with a cloth ligature around his neck and pronounced dead at a Georgia hospital.
June 10, 2025
On the ground
The charges stem from a May 9, 2025 scuffle outside Delaney Hall, where Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested after trying to join McIver and other members of Congress on an oversight visit; the trespassing charge against Baraka was dropped. Prosecutors allege McIver struck agents with her forearms. She pleaded not guilty and called it “a brazen attempt at political intimidation.” A judge declined to dismiss the charges. After the clash, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said arresting Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman and Rob Menendez, who were also on the visit, was “definitely on the table.”
June 11, 2025
In his own words
The email, about protesters trying to breach a federal building’s garage, was obtained through a public-records request by the watchdog American Oversight and published by the Los Angeles Times in March 2026. American Oversight said DHS had tried to withhold the line.
“No one likes being hit by a stick, and people tend to run when that starts happening in earnest.”
June 12, 2025
On the ground
DHS then said there would be “no safe spaces for industries who harbor violent criminals.” Several Hispanic Republican officials had pushed for the exemptions.
June 23, 2025
Johnny Noviello, a 49-year-old Canadian national, died on June 23, 2025 in ICE custody at a federal detention center in Miami, Florida. He was found unresponsive and could not be revived; his death prompted a formal response from the Canadian government.
June 26, 2025
Isidro Perez, a 75-year-old Cuban national, died on June 26, 2025 in ICE custody at the Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami, Florida. The 75-year-old was found in cardiac distress and died despite CPR and defibrillation.
July 1, 2025
In his own words
Trump said he would like to see similar facilities in “many states.” Florida’s attorney general sold merchandise branded with the camp’s name, with shirts reading “Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.”
July 4, 2025
On the ground
The detention money could double daily capacity to at least 116,000 people. Nearly $30 billion goes to hiring 10,000 deportation officers, planes and bonuses.
July 10, 2025
On the ground
He was never told the charges. He later sued under the Federal Tort Claims Act.
July 14, 2025
On the ground
The agreement said it would help ICE find “the location of aliens.” A federal judge later issued a preliminary injunction blocking the sharing in a suit by 22 states.
July 15, 2025
On the ground
On June 11, 2025, hundreds of people tried to block a bus taking two asylum seekers from Spokane to the Tacoma detention center. Prosecutors used a Civil War-era law against conspiring to impede federal officers, and the former acting U.S. attorney for Eastern Washington resigned rather than sign the indictment. On May 28, 2026, a jury convicted Mavalwalla and two others, the “Spokane 3,” who face up to six years in prison.
July 19, 2025
Tien Xuan Phan, a 55-year-old Vietnamese national, died on July 19, 2025 in ICE custody at the Karnes County Immigration Processing Center in Texas. He was hospitalized for seizures, vomiting and unresponsiveness and died in Karnes City.
July 21, 2025
On the ground
Kim, 40, was returning from his brother’s wedding in South Korea when he was detained on July 21, 2025. He was held at the airport for more than a week, sleeping in a chair and living off airport food, with no access to his lawyers and one phone call, then transferred to an immigration facility in Arizona. Customs and Border Protection said any green-card holder with a drug offense is in violation of their status. “The airport is not a detention facility,” his attorney said.
August 7, 2025
Chaofeng Ge, a 32-year-old from Queens, was found hanged in a shower stall at a Pennsylvania ICE processing center. His family sued the government for answers.
August 27, 2025
On the ground
The Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service called in Border Patrol on Aug. 27, 2025 as they terminated contracts with two firms, and agents checked the crews in camp. One man arrested, a longtime Oregon resident who arrived at age 4, had been certified for a U-visa in 2017 for helping federal investigators solve a crime against his family. He was released weeks later. Sen. Patty Murray asked why “cruel immigration policies now extend to individuals fighting forest fires.” Lawyers said the arrests broke DHS policy against enforcement at emergency-response sites.
August 30, 2025
On the ground
The Biden administration had issued a stop-work order to review it against an executive order on commercial spyware. DHS later said the contract was closed out in January 2026.
August 31, 2025
Lorenzo Antonio Batrez Vargas, a 32-year-old Mexican national, died on August 31, 2025 in ICE custody at a detention facility in Florence, Arizona. He was hospitalized and died of suspected pulmonary complications at 32.
September 4, 2025
On the ground
South Korea chartered a plane to bring its workers home, and the two governments negotiated their release. The plant was a major investment by companies from a close U.S. ally.
On the ground
She was arrested at customs in Chicago returning from a family funeral in Ireland. She was released in December after her husband testified to Congress.
September 8, 2025
Oscar Duarte Rascon, a 58-year-old Mexican national, died on September 8, 2025 in ICE custody at the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona. He had late-stage Alzheimer's disease, kidney cancer and hepatitis C, and died in a Mesa hospital.
On the ground
Justice Sotomayor wrote in dissent that the Court had “all but declared that all Latinos, U.S. citizens or not, who work low-wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time.”
September 9, 2025
On the ground
Culleton has no criminal record. He said agents pressed him to sign deportation papers, which he refused, and described the camp as “like a concentration camp, absolute hell”: more than 70 men in a cold, damp room. A court stayed his deportation in early 2026 while he remained detained.
September 12, 2025
On September 12, 2025, an ICE officer shot and killed Silverio Villegas González, a 38-year-old Mexican immigrant who had lived in the Chicago area for nearly two decades, as he tried to drive away from a traffic stop in suburban Franklin Park during the administration’s “Midway Blitz” enforcement operation. DHS claimed Villegas González had dragged an officer with his car; the Cook County medical examiner ruled the death a homicide, and the Illinois State Police opened an investigation. It was one of the first killings of the intensified 2025 immigration crackdown around Chicago.
September 18, 2025
Santos Reyes-Banegas, a 42-year-old Honduran national, died on September 18, 2025 in ICE custody at the Nassau County Correctional Center in East Meadow, New York. He died of liver failure less than 18 hours after being taken into ICE custody.
On the ground
The officials went to the 10th-floor holding rooms the day after a federal judge ordered ICE to limit crowding there and provide basic sanitation and sleeping mats. They wanted to see whether ICE was complying. Lander, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and dozens of others were detained during protests outside. In June 2026, a judge acquitted Lander of the charges from his arrest.
September 20, 2025
On the ground
Homan allegedly promised help with immigration contracts once in office. FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy AG Todd Blanche said they found no credible evidence of a crime. Homan first said he did “nothing criminal,” then said he never took the money; the White House said he did nothing wrong. Lawmakers demanded the tapes.
On the ground
Newsom signed the mask ban and a companion law requiring officers to display their agency and badge number in September 2025. A federal official said California “has no jurisdiction over the federal government.” On Nov. 17, 2025, the Justice Department sued California, Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta. In February 2026, Judge Christina Snyder blocked the mask ban because it exempted state officers, but upheld the identification requirement and wrote that “federal officers can perform their federal functions without wearing masks.” State Sen. Scott Wiener said ICE and Border Patrol cover their faces “to maximize their terror campaign and to insulate themselves from accountability.”
September 22, 2025
Ismael Ayala Uribe, a 39-year-old Mexican national, died on September 22, 2025 in ICE custody at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California. He developed an abscess, went into tachycardia and hypotension, and died of a heart attack.
September 24, 2025
On the ground
It was the second time the company had to distance itself from DHS’s use of its brand.
September 25, 2025
On the ground
The page quoted governors and members of Congress criticizing ICE and claimed a “1,000% surge” in assaults on agents.
On the ground
Escobar Molina has held temporary protected status since 2001. The suit, brought by the ACLU of D.C., CASA and others, included more plaintiffs describing warrantless arrests during the D.C. surge, where officers set up checkpoints in Latino neighborhoods. In December 2025, Judge Beryl Howell granted a preliminary injunction barring widespread immigration arrests in Washington without warrants or probable cause of flight risk.
September 29, 2025
Huabing Xie, a 53-year-old Chinese national, died on September 29, 2025 in ICE custody at the Imperial Regional Detention Facility in Calexico, California. He suffered an apparent seizure in custody and died in San Diego.
September 30, 2025
A federal judge ruled the administration had violated the First Amendment by targeting noncitizen students and professors for deportation over pro-Palestinian speech.
October 3, 2025
On the ground
ICE had logged more than 233,000 claims worth over $96 million in 2025 to that point. Promised resumption of payments in April 2026 did not happen; ICE then awarded two no-bid contracts worth over $110 million to handle reimbursements. One Colorado hospital said it was owed $4 million.
On the ground
“The law does not permit this kind of prolonged deprivation of an individual’s liberty without any allegations or charges,” Judge Cynthia Valenzuela wrote.
October 4, 2025
A CBP agent shot Marimar Martinez, a 30-year-old woman, five times during an immigration operation in Chicago's Brighton Park neighborhood.
Leo Cruz-Silva, a 34-year-old Mexican national, died on October 4, 2025 in ICE custody at the Ste. Genevieve County Jail in Missouri. He was reported to have died by hanging while held for ICE.
October 9, 2025
On the ground
Police had arrested him on a tip that he threatened a classmate. His mother was told to come get him, then learned after an hour that ICE already had him; she found out where he was only from his phone calls. The family has a pending asylum case and work authorization. A Boston federal judge ordered him released unless DHS justified holding him, but an immigration judge kept him detained, and in November the family accepted voluntary departure to Brazil to get him out.
October 11, 2025
Hasan Ali Moh'D Saleh, a 67-year-old Jordanian national, died on October 11, 2025 in ICE custody at the Krome North Detention Center in Miami, Florida. The 67-year-old spiked a high fever, became unresponsive and died of cardiac arrest.
October 12, 2025
On the ground
She was held without bail over the weekend and then released on conditions. Her husband said agents moved in as the Unpresidented Brass Band, which says it plays to de-escalate protests, started “Ghostbusters.” Court papers allege she kicked and bit an officer while being detained for interfering with another arrest.
October 14, 2025
On the ground
Bondi said the page was used to “dox and target” agents sent to Chicago. Meta said it was removed for violating its policies against “coordinated harm.” It came days after Apple pulled the ICEBlock app under pressure from Bondi.
October 18, 2025
On the ground
Purchases included chemical agents. A listing for “guided missile warheads” drew attention; DHS called that claim false and reporters traced it to a likely coding error.
October 20, 2025
ICE agents shot 25-year-old U.S. citizen Carlos Jimenez in the shoulder in Los Angeles; his lawyers said he was hit from behind as he stopped to warn a school bus of agents nearby.
October 21, 2025
On the ground
The Coast Guard’s budget had requested one $50 million jet. Top House appropriations Democrats said Noem never notified them of the larger purchase.
October 22, 2025
On the ground
October 23, 2025
Gabriel Garcia-Aviles, a 56-year-old Mexican national, died on October 23, 2025 in ICE custody at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California. He went into cardiac arrest attributed to alcohol withdrawal and died in Victorville.
On the ground
The Chicago Headline Club cited the encounter in federal court as a violation of Judge Sara Ellis’s order limiting force against journalists and protesters. Ellis then ordered Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino to testify and later found he had lied about being hit by a rock before he threw tear gas in Little Village that day.
October 24, 2025
On the ground
He had lived in the U.S. since infancy. DHS said it didn’t receive the order until after the plane left; the ACLU asked a judge to order him returned.
In his own words
The day before, Pritzker had created a state commission to document federal agents’ conduct in Illinois. PolitiFact rated Miller’s immunity claim “Mostly False”: federal officers have some protection when acting within their duties, but they can be prosecuted for breaking state or federal law.
“To all ICE officers, you have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties. And anybody who lays a hand on you or tries to stop you or tries to obstruct you is committing a felony.”
On the ground
Border Patrol said Griffin shut a car door on an agent’s leg. His family said he was held for hours “hidden throughout the system” before turning up in FBI custody. He was charged with assaulting a federal officer, a charge carrying up to eight years. Federal prosecutors later moved to drop it.
October 25, 2025
During a Chicago enforcement sweep, Border Patrol agents allegedly dragged and broke the ribs of a 67-year-old U.S. citizen and member of a local running club.
Kai Yin Wong, a 63-year-old Chinese national, died on October 25, 2025 in ICE custody at the South Texas ICE Processing Center in San Antonio, Texas. He died of heart failure and possible pneumonia at a San Antonio hospital.
On the ground
Her suit says her case specialist at BI Inc., the company that monitors immigrants for DHS, demanded sexual favors and sent her explicit texts and videos, and that she reported him in November 2024. Her lawyers called the removal illegal and retaliatory. She later returned to the U.S. to pursue her case.
October 26, 2025
Randall Gamboa Esquivel, 52, died after being deported to Costa Rica in a vegetative state following his time in ICE custody.
October 27, 2025
On the ground
ICE argued that once the stopgap budget expired on October 1, it was no longer spending money covered by Section 527, the appropriations provision guaranteeing lawmakers on-demand access. Democrats also said ICE had quietly furloughed most of its congressional-relations staff. Rep. LaMonica McIver said Republicans were “using the shutdown that they caused as an excuse to give ICE coverage to operate without oversight.”
October 28, 2025
On the ground
ICE was averaging about 1,178 arrests a day. Leaders in Portland, Denver, San Diego, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Philadelphia were removed.
October 31, 2025
On the ground
Mobile Fortify lets agents point a phone at someone’s face, or scan fingerprints, to try to identify them and check immigration status in the field. A DHS document says individuals cannot decline to be photographed and that photos are kept for 15 years whether or not they match, according to 404 Media and NPR. 404 Media reported the app searches some 200 million images and that a match can be treated as “definitive” even against documents like a birth certificate. ICE agents have also used it on bystanders and protesters.
November 5, 2025
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem claimed no U.S. citizens had been arrested or detained in immigration sweeps — a statement fact-checkers rated false, with multiple documented cases by then.
“No American citizens have been arrested or detained.”
November 6, 2025
On the ground
Judge Sara Ellis said the government’s claims of widespread riots weren’t credible. She had earlier ordered Bovino to report to her daily and wear a body camera; an appeals court paused the daily check-ins.
November 10, 2025
On the ground
The officer told the agent there was nothing he could do about someone following or recording him if no crime had occurred. The woman drove away.
On the ground
The Justice Department appeals a judge’s order limiting immigration agents’ use of force on protesters and journalists around Chicago, calling it “overbroad and unworkable.” Judge Sara Ellis had found agents violated First Amendment rights and ordered them to use force only against immediate threats, with warnings first. Witnesses testified that agents pointed guns at them and hit them with pepper balls and tear gas for recording arrests. The 7th Circuit paused the order on Nov. 19.
November 15, 2025
On the ground
DHS invoked a border “national emergency” to skip competitive bidding. The Strategy Group, which ran the Mount Rushmore shoot during the shutdown, did not appear on public contract documents; its CEO is married to Noem’s top spokesperson. Axios called it “the most expensive political ad campaign of the year.”
“Break our laws, we’ll punish you.”
On the ground
Agents fanned out across Charlotte over the weekend of Nov. 15–16, 2025. Bovino said they arrested 81 people on Saturday alone, without releasing names or charges; he posted photos of some arrestees claiming they had criminal records. A man was hospitalized after a medical episode as agents tried to detain him outside a church. The granddaughter of “Charlotte’s Web” author E.B. White criticized the use of the book’s name.
November 22, 2025
Federal prosecutors apologized in court for deporting Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, a 19-year-old Babson College student detained days before Thanksgiving.
December 3, 2025
Francisco Gaspar-Andres, a 48-year-old Guatemalan national, died on December 3, 2025 in ICE custody at Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas. He was hospitalized with suspected liver and kidney failure and died in El Paso.
December 4, 2025
On the ground
She came in 2022 under the Uniting for Ukraine program and had applied to renew her Temporary Protected Status. An officer told her the interview was going well, stepped out, and came back with two ICE agents. DHS said her TPS had expired, and she was released after three days.
On the ground
The Dec. 4, 2025 report describes detainees held more than 30 to a cage with three toilets, overflowing toilets with fecal matter seeping into sleeping areas, lights on 24 hours a day, exposure to insects, and poor food and water. Guards used “the box,” a cage outside in the Florida sun, to punish trivial or nonexistent offenses. With no registration or tracking, Amnesty said, detention became “incommunicado” and amounted to enforced disappearance. A federal judge ordered the Everglades camp closed in August; two Trump-appointed appeals judges blocked the order.
December 5, 2025
Pete Sumalo Montejo, a 72-year-old Filipino national, died on December 5, 2025 in ICE custody at the Montgomery Processing Center in Texas. The 72-year-old died of pneumonia complications, hypoxia and shortness of breath.
December 6, 2025
Shiraz Fatehali Sachwani, a 48-year-old Pakistani national, died on December 6, 2025 in ICE custody at the Prairieland Detention Center near Fort Worth, Texas. He died of heart failure related to respiratory, liver and kidney problems.
December 8, 2025
In his own words
On Fox News’ “Hannity,” Noem said Mamdani “could be violating the Constitution by giving advice on how to evade law enforcement,” adding: “We’re certainly going after and looking into all of that with coordination of the Department of Justice.” In the video, Mamdani told New Yorkers: “If ICE does not have a judicial warrant signed by a judge, you have the right to say, ‘I do not consent to entry,’ and the right to keep your door closed,” while also saying people may not impede an investigation.
“We’re certainly going after and looking into all of that with coordination of the Department of Justice.”
December 9, 2025
ICE agents in Minneapolis arrested Susan Tincher, a U.S. citizen, while she peacefully observed one of their operations as a community witness.
December 10, 2025
On the ground
The purchase was funded by the One Big Beautiful Bill.
On the ground
On the ground
An apparent ICE roster of immigration attorneys is found buried on ICE’s website and pulled after a lawyer discovers her own name on it. The list was made up overwhelmingly of lawyers with Latino, Asian or African-sounding names. The advocacy group Al Otro Lado filed a records request demanding to know who created it and why.
December 11, 2025
In his own words
Sae Joon Park, shot twice serving in Panama in 1989, had lived in the U.S. nearly five decades before leaving under threat of forced removal. A September 2025 letter from Noem had said ICE removed eight veterans.
December 12, 2025
Jean Wilson Brutus, a 41-year-old Haitian national, died on December 12, 2025 in ICE custody at the Delaney Hall Detention Facility in Newark, New Jersey. He was found dead of suspected natural causes at the privately run facility.
December 14, 2025
Delvin Francisco Rodriguez, a 39-year-old Nicaraguan national, died on December 14, 2025 in ICE custody at the Adams County Correctional Center in Natchez, Mississippi. He was found without a pulse and removed from a ventilator after doctors found no brain function.
Fouad Saeed Abdulkadir, a 46-year-old Eritrean national, died on December 14, 2025 in ICE custody at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania. He died in medical distress after complaining of chest pain, amid allegations of inadequate care at the facility.
December 15, 2025
With deaths in immigration detention reaching a 22-year high, ICE quietly scaled back the detailed public reports it had long issued each time a detainee died.
December 16, 2025
Nenko Gantchev, a 56-year-old Bulgarian-born Chicago business owner, died in ICE custody at a privately run Michigan facility. His was the fourth death in ICE custody in four days (December 12–15), all in privately run prisons: three operated by GEO Group and one by CoreCivic. One of the men, Fouad Saeed Abdulkadir, died three days after filing an emergency habeas petition over inadequate medical care. The ACLU called it “a red-hot crisis.”
December 17, 2025
On the ground
An ICE memo lays out “Operation Irish Goodbye,” sending agents to border crossings and buses to arrest immigrants trying to leave the U.S. voluntarily for the holidays and put them into formal deportation. A formal removal can bar people from returning for years or permanently. Critics said it would also inflate the administration’s deportation numbers.
December 31, 2025
On the night of December 31, 2025, Keith Porter Jr., a 43-year-old father of two, was firing an AR-15-style rifle into the air in a New Year’s Eve celebration outside his home in Northridge, Los Angeles, the LAPD said, when an off-duty ICE agent — later identified in court filings as Brian Palacios — left his apartment with his service weapon and shot him dead. DHS said Porter had pointed the rifle at the agent; his family and neighbors said he was celebrating and posed no threat, and that the agent should have called police and waited. No charges have been filed, and the family is demanding an independent investigation.
On the ground
The plan targeted people who attended UFC fights, listened to “patriotic” podcasts or showed interest in tactical gear, using “former agents, veterans and pro-ICE creators.”
January 3, 2026
Geraldo Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old Cuban national, died on January 3, 2026 in ICE custody at Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas. An autopsy ruled his death a homicide by asphyxia, noting petechiae — a rare official homicide finding among in-custody deaths.
January 5, 2026
Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres, a 42-year-old Honduran national, died on January 5, 2026 in ICE custody at ICE custody in Conroe, Texas. He died of congestive heart failure after being hospitalized.
January 6, 2026
Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz, a 68-year-old Honduran national, died on January 6, 2026 in ICE custody at the Imperial Regional Detention Facility in Calexico, California. The 68-year-old was hospitalized with chest pains and died in Indio.
January 7, 2026
ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old American woman, in Minneapolis; a family-commissioned autopsy found she was shot in the head. Ross received three days of administrative leave. Trump publicly defended him, falsely claiming Good had “run over” the officer — who, video showed, remained on his feet throughout. Online fundraisers for Ross raised more than $1 million, including $10,000 from billionaire Bill Ackman.
“...very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense.”
January 9, 2026
Parady La, a 46-year-old Cambodian national who came to the U.S. at age two, died on January 9, 2026 in ICE custody at a federal detention center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He suffered an anoxic brain injury after cardiac arrest attributed to drug withdrawal and died in Philadelphia.
On the ground
DHS’s Instagram recruitment post used the song by Pine Tree Riots, with lyrics about reclaiming “our home” by “blood or sweat,” which the Southern Poverty Law Center and The Intercept documented circulating in neo-Nazi and white-nationalist online spaces. The slogan also appeared on the White House feed.
January 13, 2026
On the ground
Those resigning included Joseph Thompson, who led the Feeding Our Future fraud prosecution of 78 people. They felt pressure from leadership in Minneapolis and Washington to probe Good’s and her widow’s ties to activist groups, and objected to cutting state and local investigators out of the shooting inquiry. An FBI agent also resigned after trying to investigate the ICE officer.
In his own words
The statement was one of DHS’s most direct declarations of a policy treating people who observe and film immigration arrests as criminals. In January 2026, a federal judge ruled that a DHS policy threatening ICE observers with arrest was unlawful.
January 14, 2026
Victor Manuel Diaz, a 36-year-old Nicaraguan national, died on January 14, 2026 in ICE custody at Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas. He was found unresponsive in a death ICE deemed a presumed suicide; his family has disputed that account.
Heber Sánchez Domínguez, a 34-year-old Mexican national, died on January 14, 2026 in ICE custody at the Robert A. Deyton Detention Facility in Lovejoy, Georgia. The 34-year-old husband and father was found hanging in his cell.
On the ground
Past administrations routinely opened civil rights reviews when law enforcement shot civilians. Officials instead called the shooting self-defense and labeled Good’s actions “domestic terrorism.” At least six Minnesota prosecutors resigned after being pushed to investigate Good and the people around her. No federal agent has been charged in the killings of U.S. citizens Ruben Ray Martinez, Renee Good or Alex Pretti.
On the ground
The bullet continued into the wall of a child’s bedroom. Hennepin County charged Castro with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime, saying he was standing alone outside and was never hit with any object. He was arrested in May 2026, and in September the Justice Department brought federal charges accusing him of lying about the shooting.
January 18, 2026
Amalia, an 18-month-old held at the Dilley family detention center in Texas, was hospitalized with respiratory failure after her family said she was denied medication.
January 19, 2026
On the ground
Cobb had blocked the original June 2025 notice policy on December 17, finding it likely violated appropriations law. DHS issued a new one on January 8, 2026, after three Minnesota Democrats were turned away from an ICE facility near Minneapolis days after an ICE officer killed Renee Good. Cobb ruled the new policy was a separate action outside her earlier order and did not decide whether it was legal.
January 20, 2026
On the ground
Federal prosecutors serve grand jury subpoenas on Gov. Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her and county officials. The investigation is into whether their public statements obstructed the immigration crackdown, under a conspiracy statute. One subpoena sought “any records tending to show a refusal to come to the aid of immigration officials.” Walz and Frey called it a bullying tactic.
January 22, 2026
On the ground
ICE had called the deaths suicides. Victor Manuel Diaz, 36, died January 14; his autopsy went to William Beaumont Army Medical Center instead of the county examiner.
On the ground
Kristi Noem had posted the original photo on Jan. 22, 2026, showing Levy Armstrong looking ahead calmly as she was taken into custody, one of three people arrested over a protest that interrupted a service at a St. Paul church. The White House then posted a version altered to show her in tears. A senior White House official confirmed the alteration to NBC News and called it a “meme,” pointing to deputy communications director Kaelan Dorr’s post: “Enforcement of the law will continue. The memes will continue.” Her attorney said she was “arrested for doing a peaceful nonviolent protest in a church.”
“Enforcement of the law will continue. The memes will continue.”
January 23, 2026
Wael Tarabishi, a 30-year-old with Pompe disease, died after ICE detained his father and primary caregiver, who had been the one driving him to medical care.
January 24, 2026
On January 24, 2026, a Border Patrol agent shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and ICU nurse at a VA hospital, on Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis. DHS said Pretti was armed and was shot in self-defense as he resisted being disarmed, but bystander video does not show him holding a weapon, and a CNN analysis appears to show a federal officer removing a gun from him just before he was shot at least ten times. Pretti, who had a state permit to carry and no criminal record, was the third person shot by federal agents in Minneapolis in under a month — after ICE agent Jonathan Ross killed Renee Good on January 7.
On the ground
He was held for hours without the sign-language interpreter his mother says was promised, denied the bathroom, and released with a citation. He had joined the protest in solidarity with people killed by federal agents.
February 16, 2026
Dr. Linda Davis, a special-education teacher in Savannah, Georgia, was killed when a man fleeing ICE officers crashed into her car.
Lorth Sim, a 59-year-old Cambodian national, died on February 16, 2026 in ICE custody at the Miami Correctional Facility in Bunker Hill, Indiana. He was found unresponsive in his cell and pronounced dead.
Jairo Garcia-Hernandez, a 27-year-old Guatemalan national, died on February 16, 2026 in ICE custody at ICE custody in South Miami, Florida. The 27-year-old collapsed unexpectedly with severe medical complications and died.
February 18, 2026
On the ground
He is a college-educated lab worker; his wife and three children are U.S. citizens. More than 260 DACA recipients had been detained since January 2025.
February 24, 2026
On the ground
The record belonged to someone with a different birthdate, birthplace and parents. Judge Irene Berger ordered him released.
“This sloppiness further validates the Court’s concerns about the procedures utilized by the Respondents depriving people present in the United States of their liberty.”
On the ground
The 2000 Child Citizenship Act made most international adoptees citizens automatically but left out those who were already adults or entered on the wrong visa. She has no criminal record and does not know what prompted the letter.
February 25, 2026
In his own words
Noem said there were “no plans.” A DHS official later said ICE would not be at polling places and called other claims “disinformation.”
February 26, 2026
On the ground
Frankline Okpu died in December 2023 after staff failed to follow his doctor’s orders. Video showed 94 of 219 required checks never happened, and 23 that were logged never took place at all. The review was completed in January 2026, and three months later ICE added $4 million to GEO’s contract for the facility. The Intercept describes GEO as politically connected.
February 27, 2026
Alberto Gutierrez-Reyes, a 48-year-old Mexican national, died on February 27, 2026 in ICE custody at ICE custody in Victorville, California. He suffered from diabetes and high cholesterol; a city council member said he had been denied medical care.
March 1, 2026
Pejman Karshenas Najafabadi, a 59-year-old Iranian national, died on March 1, 2026 in ICE custody at ICE custody in Natchez, Mississippi. The 59-year-old, who had chronic health issues, died of cardiac arrest at a Mississippi hospital.
March 2, 2026
Emmanuel Damas, a 56-year-old Haitian asylum seeker, died of sepsis from an untreated tooth infection while held in ICE custody in Arizona.
On the ground
Cobb rejected the administration’s argument that paying for detention with money from the 2025 tax-and-spending law let DHS get around the 2019 appropriations provision allowing lawmakers to visit unannounced.
March 3, 2026
In his own words
Video showed Pretti did not reach for his gun. Two Senate Republicans said Noem should be out of a job; Democrats called for her impeachment.
On the ground
The mother had a pending asylum case. Her lawyer said she was pressured to sign papers in a language she didn’t understand and moved so lawyers couldn’t reach her; DHS cited a 2024 removal order.
March 4, 2026
On the ground
Twelve more people were isolated. The tent camp at Fort Bliss, which holds nearly 3,000 people, was run under a $1.2 billion contract by a small Virginia firm that had never operated an ICE facility. Rep. Veronica Escobar called for it to be shut down.
March 5, 2026
On the ground
Under Noem’s policy every contract over $100,000 needed her personal approval, with Lewandowski typically the last sign-off before hers. Trump replaced Noem as secretary that month.
March 6, 2026
On the ground
About 3,000 people are held in windowless tents that leak; detainees see sunlight once or twice a week. DHS said the betting account was a lie.
March 7, 2026
After arresting an undocumented father in Franklin Township, New Jersey, ICE agents left his two young children unattended.
March 10, 2026
On the ground
Adriana Laya cleaned hotels and Miguel Alberto Caicedo drove deliveries, and their children, 11 and 5, were in school. While they were detained they were evicted, and their belongings and savings were taken. After their release in mid-February they lived in their car, the one thing they recovered.
March 11, 2026
A judge dismissed felony charges against Miguel Angel Garcia Martinez, a 24-year-old U.S. citizen, after agents' accounts of him “assaulting” them were contradicted by the record.
On the ground
Judge Eric Tostrud found the government “adopted a policy authorizing federal immigration officers to conduct investigatory stops based on ethnicity or race without reasonable suspicion,” but said the operation was winding down.
On the ground
Judge Leo Sorokin questioned why she was moved or detained at all. A congresswoman accused ICE of using her as “bait” to target her father.
March 14, 2026
Mohammad Nazeer Paktyawal, a 41-year-old former Afghan special-forces soldier who had been legally evacuated to the United States, died in ICE custody.
March 16, 2026
Royer Perez-Jimenez, a 19-year-old Mexican national, died on March 16, 2026 in ICE custody at the Glades County Detention Center in Moore Haven, Florida. The 19-year-old was found unconscious and unresponsive in his room and could not be revived.
March 22, 2026
On the ground
Tom Homan said ICE agents would move lines along and guard exits; they are not trained in screening. More than 400 TSA workers had quit since the shutdown began February 14.
March 23, 2026
The Justice Department admitted in federal court that the administration had wrongfully deported 91 asylum seekers who were protected by a court order.
March 25, 2026
José Guadalupe Ramos-Solano, a 52-year-old Mexican national, died on March 25, 2026 in ICE custody at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California. He was found unresponsive in his bunk; he had suffered from diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol.
March 26, 2026
On the ground
Hundreds of people had been arrested after attending their own hearings. DOJ blamed ICE for telling it the guidance applied.
March 30, 2026
On the ground
It is part of ICE’s plan to convert industrial buildings into detention sites. Salt Lake City sued, and in August 2026 ICE dropped the plan for the warehouse amid lawsuits over its warehouse detention program.
April 1, 2026
Tuan Van Bui, a 55-year-old Vietnamese national, died on April 1, 2026 in ICE custody at the Miami Correctional Facility in Bunker Hill, Indiana. He was found unresponsive at the facility and pronounced dead.
April 11, 2026
Alejandro Cabrera Clemente, a 49-year-old Mexican national, died on April 11, 2026 in ICE custody at the Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield, Louisiana. He was found unresponsive at the privately run facility and could not be revived.
April 12, 2026
Aled Damien Carbonell-Betancourt, a 27-year-old Cuban national, died on April 12, 2026 in ICE custody at a federal detention center in Miami, Florida. The 27-year-old died in what officials called a presumed suicide.
April 15, 2026
On the ground
The February 5 incident happened during Operation Metro Surge. These were the first criminal charges against an ICE officer over the Minnesota operation. Each count carries up to seven years.
April 28, 2026
Denny Adan Gonzalez, a 33-year-old Cuban national, died on April 28, 2026 in ICE custody at ICE custody in Lumpkin, Georgia. He died in what officials called a presumed suicide.
May 12, 2026
On the ground
Venegas was detained twice in raids on construction sites where, his suit says, workers were held based on ethnicity. On May 2, months after he sued, agents pulled him from his brother’s truck and shackled his arms and legs before he could show his Alabama REAL ID. The judge asked why an ID good enough for the TSA was not good enough for ICE. On September 21, 2026, the judge ordered immigration officers to stop warrantless construction-site raids and to release workers who show a REAL ID or other proof of lawful presence. By then Venegas had been detained three times.
May 16, 2026
On the ground
She said she repeatedly begged agents to let her son come with her. An autopsy found multiple broken bones and signs of sexual abuse.
May 19, 2026
On the ground
The May 19, 2026 order directs bank regulators and federal departments to look for signs that people without legal status are opening accounts or obtaining credit, and tells Treasury to issue an advisory listing “red flags,” including use of an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number without a Social Security number or work visa. It also calls for changes to the Bank Secrecy Act and singles out documents issued by foreign consulates as risky. The White House framed it as protecting banks from “the inadmissible and removable alien population.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had asked a month earlier, “Why can the unknown foreign nationals come and open a bank account?” Earlier drafts would have required banks to collect every customer’s citizenship; the industry lobbied against that for months, and the final order stopped short of a mandate.
June 4, 2026
Mamuka Artmeladze, a 43-year-old national of Georgia, died on June 4, 2026 in ICE custody at the Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana. He was found dead at the facility with the cause of death pending an autopsy. He had no criminal record and had been held nearly four months. A recent inspection of the facility had found unsanitary conditions, medical-care failures and excessive force, including an officer using a banned chokehold and another stabbing a detainee’s thumb with a pen. It was the facility’s second death in under two months.
June 10, 2026
On the ground
June 19, 2026
Felix Alcorta-Rodriguez, a 63-year-old Mexican national, died on June 19, 2026 in ICE custody at the Webb County Detention Center in Laredo, Texas. The 63-year-old died of what officials described as natural causes.
June 24, 2026
On Election Day, two ICE agents found Syracuse poll worker Paigelynne Gonyea at the library where she was working and pressed her to sign a notice saying she was under investigation — over an Instagram post that named Jonathan Ross, the agent who had killed Renee Good. Election officials said law enforcement had no business inside a polling place.
“For ICE to come to me over a social media post just feels very 1984 to me.”
July 7, 2026
On July 7, 2026, around 6:50 a.m., an ICE officer shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national who had lived in the United States for roughly 35 years, as he drove his construction crew to a job site in Houston’s East End. A homebuilder and father of three who was in the process of obtaining a work permit, Salgado Araujo was not even the target of the operation, according to a source familiar with the case. The Department of Homeland Security said he had “weaponized his vehicle” and tried to run over an officer, who fired “in self-defense.” His passengers told their attorney otherwise: no agent was ever directly in front of the van, and the shots came from the sides — the officer, they said, fired through the passenger window — an account irreconcilable with the agency’s. His family and Houston officials demanded an independent investigation, and the DHS inspector general took over the inquiry as protests spread. It was one of at least eight deaths in the administration’s immigration-enforcement campaign.
July 13, 2026
On the morning of July 13, 2026, an ICE agent shot and killed a 26-year-old Colombian man at an intersection in Biddeford, Maine, during an immigration-enforcement operation. Immigrant-rights advocates said the man was authorized to work in the United States and had been issued a Social Security number; authorities had not publicly released his name. The Department of Homeland Security claimed he had tried to use his car as a weapon against agents pursuing him for deportation — but the agents were not wearing body cameras, so there is no footage of the encounter, and bystander video captured only the aftermath as agents tried to stop a white sedan circling the intersection. Sen. Angus King confirmed the agents had no body cameras; the FBI and Maine State Police opened investigations as protests grew. It was the second person killed by ICE in under a week, after an officer in Houston shot a man in his work van.
On July 13, 2026, Minnesota prosecutors announced that federal investigators had finally handed over evidence they had sought for more than half a year in the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti — both 37 — killed by federal immigration officers at anti-ICE protests in Minneapolis. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said the materials included previously withheld hard drives containing statements, police body-camera video, and other records, along with Good’s badly damaged SUV. Good, a mother of three, was shot in her vehicle while leaving a protest on January 7; Pretti, an intensive-care nurse, was shot by federal officers weeks later on January 24. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said he remained “deeply troubled” by the delay: “It should never have taken this long.”
July 15, 2026
On the ground
After two men — Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston and Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine — were fatally shot in ICE-involved incidents, DHS on July 14, 2026 temporarily paused most ICE traffic stops. Within a day Trump, angered by criticism from prominent MAGA voices that the pause looked soft, ordered it reversed, posting that “The Radical Left Dumocrats would like to see this done, but it won’t happen on my watch.” Senior ICE leaders said they were surprised by the reversal.
“The Radical Left Dumocrats would like to see this done, but it won’t happen on my watch.”