Deportation

What happens when someone dies inside an ICE detention facility — and who gets notified? Edwin Lopez-Cornejo, a 41-year-old man from El Salvador, died on August 1, 2026, after suffering a medical emergency at Delaney Hall Detention Facility in Newark, New Jersey. His death is now under review, and the cause has not yet been confirmed.

You are handed a jug of water inside an ICE detention center — and something is moving in it. Carlitos Ricardo Parias, detained for months at the Adelanto ICE facility in California, filmed what appeared to be worm-like creatures swimming in his drinking water and got the footage to his attorneys. The video surfaced weeks after a federal judge had already ordered the facility to provide clean water around the clock.

A 51-year-old man from Mexico is now in ICE custody in Kansas City after agents linked a drone violation near Arrowhead Stadium to his prior removal order and felony conviction. He had been deported once before — and came back. That combination, lawyers say, puts anyone in a nearly impossible position in immigration court.

Federal immigration officials have been secretly force-feeding hunger strikers inside ICE detention centers — and the government never told the public. A Guardian investigation found the practice reached at least 10 detainees in 2025 and 2026, with confirmed forced procedures on at least three people. Human rights groups call it torture.

You are working a regular shift at a farm in California when hundreds of armed agents in camouflage flood in, pointing guns at workers running in every direction. That is what happened on July 10, 2025, at Glass House Farms in Camarillo — and a year later, the people caught in that raid are still trying to put their lives back together. One man died. More than 200 workers were deported. And the legal battles are far from over.

Your grocery store may already have a scan of your face — and your landlord might too. In New York City, businesses and residential buildings are quietly collecting biometric data, including facial images, and their privacy policies allow them to share it with law enforcement. For immigrants worried about ICE, that is not a hypothetical threat.

Federal officials have quietly force-fed at least three immigrants held in ICE detention — and attempted the procedure on at least ten — according to a Guardian investigation published in 2026. The procedures, which human rights groups call torture, were carried out inside privately run detention centers with little public notice. Many of the people subjected to them had no lawyer.

What if your legal status ended overnight — and you had no idea what comes next? That's the reality for thousands of Haitian immigrants in New York right now, after Temporary Protected Status (TPS) — a program that let them live and work legally in the US — expired. At the same time, two immigrants died in ICE custody this week, and immigration courts are moving faster than ever.

You are released from federal custody in February, in Pittsburgh, wearing summer clothes, with a dead phone and no way home. That is what happened to Daphy Michel — and three days later, she was found dying on the ground at a bus stop. Now her family is preparing to sue the US government.

You are released from jail after six months. Criminal charges dropped. Your family is waiting for a call so they can pick you up. That call never comes — and three days later, you are found frozen at a bus stop, alone in a city you don't know. That is what happened to Daphy Michel, 31, a Haitian immigrant in Pennsylvania who had an asylum hearing scheduled and a family who loved her. In June 2026, the county medical examiner ruled her death a homicide.

Martin Martinez-Ballinas has been deported from the United States twice — and is now in ICE custody facing a third removal. The 38-year-old Mexican national was taken from federal prison in New Jersey on July 22, 2026, after serving time for illegal reentry. His case shows exactly how federal law treats people who return to the US after deportation.

What happens to a child in immigration court with no lawyer? Right now, tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors in the US are finding out. The Trump administration stopped paying for their legal representation, and immigration judges are issuing removal orders at four times the rate of Trump's first term.

You're at the airport, boarding pass in hand — and ICE agents are waiting. That scenario is becoming more common across the US, as ICE now uses TSA screening data to identify and arrest immigrants at airports nationwide. At the same time, courts are pushing back on the government's detention policies, and tens of thousands of migrant children may have just lost their only lawyers.

You leave for work every morning not knowing if you'll come home. That's the reality for hundreds of thousands of farm workers across the US right now. A new survey from the United Farm Workers Foundation puts hard numbers on fears that many undocumented workers have been living with since the start of 2025.

At least 52 people have died in ICE custody since the current administration took office. Tens of thousands more are held in facilities where access to lawyers, food, sunlight, and medical care is severely limited. One woman in Arizona, detained for 16 months without proper cancer treatment, has reportedly lost more than 70 pounds and is vomiting blood.