Vulnerable People Victimized and Distressed by ICE and CBP
40 Vulnerable People Victimized and Distressed by ICE and CBP
- Teenage son
Minneapolis area ICE facility
Jan 29, 2026A teenager named Anthony was trying to get needed, live saving heart medication to his detained 58-year-old father and was cruelly laughed at by ICE agents instead. According to Anthony, "I gave an ICE agent my dad's medicine, but I'm not sure if he got it because the ice agent just smirked at me. He laughed in my face." He had to return with lawyers and medical professionals to ensure his father received the medication. - 5-year-old autistic girl
Massachusetts
Jan 23, 2026A 5-year-old autistic girl was surrounded and detained by ICE goons without a warrant using her as bait to target her parents. When the mother said, "Give me my daughter back "an agent responded, "Nope, you’re going to have to come out here and get her." The child experienced high anxiety from the incident that required therapy. - Children attending school
Asylum Applicant
Minnesota
Jan 22, 2026Children going to school in Minnesota were targeted by ICE agents despite having legal authority to stay verified by the school superintendent. A 5-year-old used as bait. A 10-year-old and her mother sent to a facility in Texas the same day. A 17-year-old yanked from his car alone. - ChongLy Scott ThaoGrandfather
U.S. Citizen
St Paul, MN
Jan 19, 202656-year-old U.S. citizen ChongLy Scott Thao had his front door broken down without a warrant by ICE agents with guns drawn merely because he resembled someone they were looking for.- His 4-year-old grandson was sleeping in a room nearby
- He was handcuffed and escorted bare-chested in shorts and crocs despite freezing temperatures of only 10-dgrees Fahrenheit after his plea to change into warmer clothes was sadistically denied.
- He was driven around for an hour until they realized their mistake and returned him back home without an apology.
- Family with six children
U.S. Citizen
Minneapolis, MN
Jan 15, 2026A family was trying to escape with their children to a safer location after ICE agents tear gassed their neighborhood, but then agents fired flash-bang grenades and tear gas at their vehicle with six children inside. Their 6-month-old baby had to be hospitalized with breathing problems. - Teenage girl
U.S. Citizen
Mississippi
Jan 13, 2026A U.S. citizen teenage girl was racially profiled, forcibly removed from a vehicle and handcuffed by agents without even asking for any documents and despite being a minor. When finally allowed to show proof of citizenship, agents cruelly "snatched the documents from her hand" as if angry they couldn't make an arrest. - Two Target employees
U.S. Citizen
Target store in Richfield suburb of Minneapolis, MN
Jan 8, 2026Two U.S. citizen Target employees were assaulted by immigration agents, detained for no reason and then released.- There is video of an employee backing away into the store filming the officer and then being tackled
- A 17-year-old employee was roughed up, taken in a vehicle and left at a Walmart 8 miles away where customers found him bleeding and sobbing from the traumatic experience
- High school students and special ed teacher
U.S. Citizen
Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis, MN
Jan 8, 2026Minneapolis high school students were tear gassed by ICE\CBP agents who were "shouting at students, threatening students" and multiple witnesses reported people being shoved noting agents were "physical and aggressive." They detained a special ed teacher for dubious reasons and so he was later released. - 16=year-old high school student
Hartford, CT and Texas
Dec 24, 2025A 16-year-old high school student on track for an early graduation was needlessly detained for 6 months at a facility in Texas despite living in Connecticut and despite adhering to routine check-ins with immigration. They threatened to immediately deport him with only a single phone call allowed in the middle of the night, but luckily, he had memorized the phone number to their lawyer who answered and prevented the illegal deportation. - Teenage girl
Chicago, IL
Dec 17, 2025A teenage girl is left terrorized by overly aggressive questioning by immigration agents who are seen laughing afterwards. - Jose Gomez13-year-old boy
Asylum Applicant
Eden Prairie suburb of Minneapolis, MN
Dec 11, 2025A 13-year-old boy was thrown to the ground, struck, handcuffed by ICE agents and taken away in a vehicle without giving any medical attention. Only after repeated insistence by his father was he released into his family's custody who took him to the hospital which the medical report stated he was a "victim of assault and battery" with "chest wall pain." - Darwing Padilla
U.S. Work Permit Holder,Green Card Applicant
New Orleans, LA
Dec 11, 2025Darwing Padilla was targeted by several masked ICE agents who followed him to his home in unmarked vehicles. Agents ignored his valid papers under the guise of having an order of deportation (which did not exist). When his wife called them out on their ruse and asked to see it, they then pretended to have "misread" it and left. His 7-year-old daughter witnessed the entire incident crying out, "My dad, my dad, my dad. They are taking my dad" while shaking. - Nayra GuzmánMother of baby needing intensive care
U.S. Work Permit Holder
Chicago, IL
Dec 2, 2025U.S. work permit holder and 22-year-old asylum applicant Nayra Guzmán and her family were detained by ICE on their way to see her baby recovering at the neonatal intensive care unit of a hospital after an emergency Cesarean section of which she also suffered pain and complications. Despite their paperwork and circumstances, she was detained for 34 hours without receiving any medical evaluation. And, she was forced to spend the entire time in a room which was very cold with only a bench to lie on and no blankets or anything for sleep. Afterwards, she had complications producing breast milk for her baby. While being transferred by van, agents, aware of her condition and ignoring pleas from her brother, drove recklessly fast and over potholes in a way that was very painful for Nayra. - Chinese man and his son Yuanxin
Queens, NY
Dec 2, 2025A Chinese father was arrested and detained separately from his 6-year-old son after a routine immigration appointment in Queens of which nobody knows where the son is being kept in ICE custody and ICE did not provide any information on his detainment until a week later acknowledging he was in custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement - Martha Ruiz56-year old diabetic
Green Card Applicant
Gary, Indiana
Nov 29, 202556-year old diabetic Martha Ruiz, who has no criminal history and has lived in the U.S. since the 90s on a religious visa, had agents bang on her door and then immediately broke it down before she had time to answer.- Despite her telling them she had a hurt arm, agents forced it behind her back and handcuffed her on the ground.
- One of their dogs obviously bit her repeatedly on her back and legs leaving bite wounds still noticeable two weeks later. When she yelled out in pain and out of a longtime fear of dogs, they dismissed her with "our dog doesn’t bite."
- They then dragged her up the stairs and threw her on the ground fracturing her ribs which she did not receive any medical attention for until she was released two weeks later.
- When she asked to use the bathroom, they refused.
- She was transferred from a nearby ICE facility in Broadview, Chicago where she shared an overcrowded room with 170 people with only one window, a single open bathroom with no privacy and where some had to sleep on the floor.
- She was then transferred to an El Paso, TX ICE facility much further away after a couple days where they finally treated just the pain from her injuries but only with a single injection.
- She was finally taken to a women's shelter where people were kind and welcoming but obstinately felt the need to shackle her the entire trip all the way up until she walked in the door.
- When finally released, her son had to fly all the way out to El Paso to bring her home where she was given an ankle monitor -- something they could have done very easily from the beginning.
- Woman passively protesting
Payne-Phalen neighborhood of St Paul, MN
Nov 25, 2025A woman in a cane passively and peacefully protesting an ICE operation was pepper sprayed in the face at point blank range for an excessively long time after which she was pushed away until she fell to the ground overcome. This violated a federal court order governing its use according to a former officer and use-of-force expert. - Rodney TaylorBarber
Green Card Applicant,Dreamer
Georgia
Nov 21, 2025A beloved DACA eligible and Green Card Applicant barber who has lived in the U.S. for 40 years since coming as a child under a medical visa was detained for a year without bond despite being pardoned for a crime in 2010 due to his strong character vouched by many. He is a double amputee and struggles with many health issues that are worsened by the conditions during detainment. He got engaged 10 days before being detained, and his fiancée has trouble finding the time to visit going 2 months sometimes as the facility is 150 miles away. They have seven children and on a recent trip to visit him, the ICE facility for no good reason limited the number of people who could visit forcing some of his children to wait in the parking lot. - Jennifer33-year-old mother and her four children
Queens, New York City
Nov 18, 2025Jennifer had her apartment door busted in by immigration agents without showing a warrant, had her phone knocked out of her hands as she filmed and was dragged by her hair while holding her 2-year-old baby. One agent screamed, "put your fucking hands up, stupid" and another pointed an assault rifle at her 13-year-old daughter. They were detained for an hour as agents asked them about a cousin who had not lived there for years. - Juanita Avila
Permanent U.S. Resident
Cottage Grove, OR
Nov 6, 20254'9" tall legal U.S. resident Juanita Avila was violently yanked from her minivan, thrown to the ground and had multiple agents knee her in the back while they pulled hard on her arms and handcuffed her. She had simply asked, "Why was I pulled over?" which instead of answering, the angrily escalated to violence as they knew the answer was racial profiling. She was detained for 30 minutes until let go despite having her U.S. Permanent Resident ID in her pocket. Afterwards she described feeling emotional trauma and pain "everywhere, like where they put their knees." - 32-year-old father & his 1-year-old daughter
U.S. Citizen
Los Angeles Home Depot Parking Lot
Nov 6, 2025A 32-year-old father and U.S. citizen was removed from his vehicle by masked immigration agents who then drove off in his car with his one-year-old daughter strapped in the back seat ignoring yelled warnings by a witness that "there's a baby in the back" (presumably on purpose). The family did not know where she was for a while and the baby's grandmother was made to wait for hours at an immigration center and provide proof of citizenship before they returned the baby. - Diana Santillana GaleanoDay care center employee
U.S. Work Permit Holder
Daycare center in Roscoe Village neighborhood of Chicago, IL
Nov 5, 2025Diana Santillana Galeano was wrestled from a daycare center in front of kids, picked up and slammed face first into the door as she was pushed outside afterwards witnesses saw, "dozens of parents and educators weeping." She was detained needlessly for a week despite having a legal work permit. - Omar Huerta CisnerosSchizophrenic 54-year-old
Green Card Holder
Southwest Chicago
Oct 31, 2025Schizophrenic 54-year-old Omar Huerta Cisneros, a Green Card holder since 1988, was detained by ICE and then dropped off somewhere else at random despite him obviously needing help upon which it took his family two weeks to find him because of his condition - Fernando Jaramillo-SolanoFather of Two
Asylum Applicant
Durango, CO, ICE Facility
Oct 29, 2025Asylum applicants Fernando Jaramillo-Solano, who worked three jobs and has no criminal history, and two of his children were detained at ICE facilities for a month before they were forced to deport back to Colombia due to the distress his children faced. ICE pulled them over while he while taking them to school in search of another person, and so they were detained without a warrant. His 12-year-old daughter said an ICE agent grabbed her breast while she was transported and experienced "acute psychological distress" during her captivity. And his 15-year-old son said when they arrived at the facility, they were treated badly, beaten and given nothing to eat or drink but potato chips and water for a day. - Franci Stagi5-foot-2 petite retiree
U.S. Citizen,Peaceful Protestor
Durango, CO, ICE Facility
Oct 29, 202557-year-old peaceful protestor Franci Stagi had her phone grabbed or knocked out of her hand by an ICE agent she was filming. When she approached him to ask for her phone he snapped and grabbed her by the hair, lifted her off the ground in a chokehold and pushed her to the ground with two other agents despite being a petite 5-foot-2. The actions were egregious enough for the local police chief to open an investigation into the agent's actions. - 67-year-old runner
U.S. Citizen
Chicago
Oct 29, 2025A 67-year-old runner and U.S. Citizen was dragged from his car, tackled, pinned down and knelt on by immigration agents in front of children attending a Halloween parade in such an excessive use of force that he suffered six broken ribs and internal bleeding of which many bystanders described as aggressive and unjustified. - Sixteen-year-old Arnoldo Bazan & his father
U.S. Citizen
Restaurant Depot store in Houston, TX
Oct 28, 2025Sixteen-year-old U.S. citizen Arnoldo Bazan was beaten, choked and verbally attacked with racial slurs by plain clothed and masked ICE officers with such force he had to go to a children's trauma unit of a hospital suffering from "damage to his neck and spine that lasted for weeks"- When he cried out that he was underage, the agent started to choke him even more which was severe enough for a witness to yell out "you're fixing to break his neck."
- An agent confiscated his phone after they noticed him filming presumably to hide incriminating evidence against them
- He was detained for hours before being released without charges.
- During the incident his father was also roughed up and kicked. Agents previously cut off the car the father was driving in with his father with two unmarked vehicles and recklessly escalated the situation by smashing the windows after which Arnulfo said he was scared and drove off briefly to escape before stopping again.
- Arnoldo found his confiscated phone days later in a Walmart parking lot kiosk selling used phones confirming that an agent not only hid evidence but profited off of it


- Video from the later found phone shows agents violently ramming their vehicle four times before they stopped


- Quinn HaberlBlind peaceful protestor
Peaceful Protestor
Portland, OR
Oct 22, 2025Quinn Haberl,a 4-foot-6 blind man sitting outside an ICE facility peacefully protesting and clearly not impeding whatsoever, was grabbed, dragged and dropped on his head, had foot pressed on his back and neck and was cuffed for an hour before taken to the hospital with lots of bruising. Agents referred to Portland as a warzone unironically during the excessively violent arrest. - 14-year-old girl and her mother
Wilder, ID horse race track
Oct 21, 2025A 14-year-old girl was dragged out of her family truck by gunpoint during an ICE raid where she fell to the ground resulting in bruising on her ribcage and was then zip-tied. Her mother, Anabel Romero, was shoved to the ground and was kicked repeatedly resulting in bruising of her ribs and shoulder despite holding her hands empty in the air waiting for instruction. They also put a gun to her head and said they were going to "f%#king blow her head off." She was zip-tied as well and asked to go back to her children of which the agent laughed and said, "we're taking better care of them." They were detained for 3 hours despite telling them her social security number and date of birth and that she had her ID in their truck. - Evelyn & two friendsChicago students
U.S. Citizens
Chicago
Oct 11, 2025A petite 18-year-old Chicagoan woman and legal U.S. resident was violently thrown to the ground and kneed in the neck by a masked ICE agent more than twice her size. He did this despite her yelling out "I'm not resisting" and having three vehicles of agents as backup. She and her two friends were subsequently detained for hours without being able to call their parents knowing where they were until they were released without charges. The ICE agents apparently were unhappy the group was filming them earlier to hold them accountable-- obstinately for completely and utterly egregious acts exactly like this. After the incident became public, DHS propagandist Tricia McLaughlin smeared the 18-year-old woman as a criminal and laughably claimed the quite obviously federal immigration officers were Chicago PD instead. - Children Living in Apartment High Rise
Apartment Hirise in South Shore neighborhood of Chicago
Sep 30, 2025Children were zip-tied and detained in "dark vans" for hours of which some were separated from their parents and others completely naked after an ICE raid on an apartment building in the South Shore neighborhood of Chicago. One agent was observed laughing and said "f#$k them kids" after a neighbor questioned their actions. - Cary Lopez Alvarado9-month-pregnant woman
U.S. Citizen
Los Angeles, CA
Sep 23, 20259-month-pregnant U.S. born citizen Cary Lopez Alvarado was racially profiled by ICE\CBP agents who said, "you're from Mexico, right?" while she was filming them arrested her boyfriend at a safe distance. Despite this, they handcuffed and detained her for over 8 hours with a chain around her belly and released her with cuts and bruises as she went into labor. - Kat AbughazalehCongressional candidate
Peaceful Protestor
Sep 19, 2025Congressional candidate and peaceful protestor Kat Abughazaleh was violently carried and thrown to the pavement by an ICE agent much larger than her where she landed on her side with a loud thud - A middle-aged woman protestor
Sep 19, 2025A middle-aged woman protestor who was clearly and obviously not a physical threat to ICE was thrown to the ground in an egregiously excessive use of force which they escalated so badly fellow agents had to intervene to stop one of their own from choking her. - 15-year-old boy
Aug 12, 2025A 15-year-old boy with significant speech and hearing disabilities was wrongfully handcuffed, detained and separated from his mother by border patrol agents for several minutes after they aggressively pointed their guns and a taser at him and his mother outside his high school. They ostensibly downplayed the incident as a case of mistaken identity because they are as inept and incompetent as they are thuggish. His mother characterized the aftermath of the traumatic incident as: "He says he has nightmares. He doesn't want to go to school. Every day I have to wake him up, and it's just so hard for him." - Mahdi KhanbabazadehDoctor
Green Card ApplicantHas a current legal visa to work in the USA, a Green Card application in the final stages of approval and is married to a U.S. citizen
Montessori Kindergarten, Beaverton, OR
Jul 28, 2025Dr. Mahdi Khanbabazadeh had his car window smashed by masked ICE agents in unmarked vans with no warning, no warrant and without identifying themselves while he was dropping his grandson off at his Kindergarten school according to witnesses who also described children, parents and staff at the scene as terrified. He was taken to a facility 150 miles away instead of a local one close to his family and held for 3+ months. - Kids at Baseball Practice
Jul 17, 2025Kids practicing with the esteemed Harlem Baseball Hitting Academy were accosted by ICE goons who harassed them with questions including "Where are you from? Where are your parents from?" and when the coach intervened and reminded the agents of how the Constitution works after recognizing their uniforms an agent glibly responded "Oh, another YouTube lawyer" - 16-year-old high school
Courthouse in Providence, RI
Nov 21, 2025A 16-year-old high school student and judiciary intern was falsely detained, handcuffed, moved between two vehicles and was about to have been taken into ICE custody if a Superior Court judge hadn't intervened to vouch for him. They obstinately claimed it was a case of "mistaken identity" which is the excuse they use to justify racially profiling people. - 17-year-old teen
U.S. Citizen
Riverside County, CA
Nov 10, 2025A 17-year-old US citizen teen was racially profiled, pulled over and held at gunpoint by a man outed as an off-duty ICE agent by the family's lawyer. He yelled "Freeze, police! Put the car in park right now!" and intimidated and threatened the boy for 10 minutes only letting him go when neighbors intervened. - Rafael Verazahis wife and 1-year-old daughter Arianna
U.S. Citizen
Nov 9, 2025Rafael Veraza was pepper sprayed directly in the face by an immigration agent while trying to drive safely away federal agents which also affected his 1-year-old daughter of which he described that she "was trying to open her eyes" and "struggling to breathe." - Sarah Shaw and her six-year-old son
Legal U.S. Washington resident
Washington StateLegal U.S. Washington resident Sarah Shaw and her six-year-old son were detained for three weeks in a cramped facility despite having a valid work permit. She drove her eldest children to the international airport in Vancouver, Canada, on a trip to visit their grandparents and immediately came back to the U.S. But she was then detained on a minor technicality of which she mistakenly thought she was allowed to leave the U.S. and it was just a quick stop to accompany her children before returning.