ICE detention photograph wins 2026 World Press Photo of the Year

Four-time Pulitzer Prize winner Carol Guzy's Separated by ICE, shot for the Miami Herald, has been named World Press Photo of the Year at the 2026 World Press Photo Awards.

The photograph was taken on August 26, 2025, inside the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in New York City, using a Nikon Z8.

It shows an Ecuadorian father, Luis, being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents following an immigration court hearing, as his wife and three children cling to him. Luis was the family's sole breadwinner.

In an interview with NPR, Guzy states how she first visited the building while in New York for an unrelated assignment and kept returning.

“I've been covering detainments for many, many months and ICE agents wait outside courtrooms and they have what they call targets and they detain them as they come out of their court hearings many times causing family separations,” she said.

“It was one of many that I photographed since I've been there. And it's always a very chaotic scene, especially when there are families involved and, you know, there's children screaming and it's very crowded with a lot of ICE agents,” she adds.

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The 10-member jury chose the photograph for making policy visible through individual experience, as stated by My Modern Met.

“What Guzy records here is not an isolated moment of grief, rather, it is evidence and documentation of a government policy being applied systematically to people who followed the rules they were given,” states the jury comment.

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Guzy responded that the award actually belongs to the families, whose openness allowed their hardships and resilience to be captured on camera and shared.

Speaking on the image, World Press Photo Executive Director Joumana El Zein Khoury says: “In a democracy, the camera's presence in that hallway serves as a witness to a policy that has turned courthouses into sites of shattered lives—it is a powerful example of why independent photojournalism matters.”

Amira Waworuntu is Mixmag Asia’s Managing Editor, follow her on Instagram.

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