A photograph of two distraught girls clinging to their father as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents took him into custody after an immigration hearing in New York City on Aug. 26, 2025, has been named World Press Photo of the Year. The image, Separated by ICE, was made by Carol Guzy for ZUMA Press and iWitness, published in the Miami Herald.
Guzy made the picture in a narrow hallway of the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building, one of the few federal courthouses where photographers were allowed repeated access. The frame captures a raw moment of family separation: Luis, the household’s sole provider, was detained by ICE after leaving an immigration court hearing.
Joumana El Zein Khoury, executive director of World Press Photo, said the photograph records the children’s inconsolable grief in a space meant for justice, and that the camera’s presence in that hallway is an important witness to policies that have turned courthouses into sites of shattered lives. The selection underscores the role of independent photojournalism in documenting public policy’s human consequences.
Guzy, a four-time Pulitzer Prize winner, discussed the picture as part of a larger series titled Ice Arrests at New York Court. In interviews she described how the work grew out of sustained observation: she began covering detainments at federal immigration hearings after the previous year’s political rhetoric and quickly found herself returning day after day because photographers were able to document the arrests.
Who is in the picture
Luis is from Ecuador; his wife is Cocha. The family had three children: a young boy, seven, and two daughters about 13 and 15 years old. According to Guzy, the family was inconsolable after his detention. Reporters and the photographer learned the family was expected to go to a local church that helps detainees’ relatives, but they did not appear there and their whereabouts became unknown.
How the image was made
Guzy spent months documenting the courthouse. She described the detainments as chaotic events: ICE agents waiting outside courtrooms to take targeted individuals into custody as they left, scenes of crying children, crowded corridors, and a mix of federal officers, lawyers, court observers and journalists. Because she had access to that hallway over an extended period, she was able to record many such confrontations and the emotional aftermath for families.
Why she pursued the story
After covering the Republican National Convention and hearing calls for mass deportations, Guzy felt the promise of aggressive immigration enforcement was likely to be enacted. What began as a single assignment became prolonged coverage because she wanted cameras present to show who was being detained and how families were affected.
Context and additional images
Guzy likened the situation to “kind of a war on the streets of America,” reflecting the political division and the scale of people affected. She said photographs put faces to policy, raise public awareness, and can hold agencies and officials accountable. Other images from the series include masked federal officers waiting outside courtrooms on July 8, 2025, with target photos; a security guard breaking down while witnessing a separation on Aug. 20, 2025; and a woman led in shackles through the Javits building’s 10th floor.
Ongoing coverage and reaction
Guzy said she had been in contact with Luis’s family but lost track when they did not appear at the church and stopped responding. She continues to follow several other households — documenting emotional trauma, financial strain and the need for therapy among children who witnessed detainments. Receiving Photo of the Year surprised and pleased her; she emphasized the honor belongs as much to the people pictured and to those working on the issue as it does to her, and she called the award a powerful statement about an unfolding story in America.