Carol Guzy wins World Press Photo for ICE family separation image

Carol Guzy’s Separated by ICE won World Press Photo’s 2026 Photo of the Year by turning a courthouse detention into a stark image of family separation and policy made visible. Made on August 26, 2025, at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in New York City, the photograph catches the emotional aftermath after Luis, an Ecuadorian migrant living in the Bronx, was detained by ICE agents following an immigration court hearing.

What makes the picture land so hard is that it is not a chase scene or an arrest-in-motion frame. It is the silence after the fact: Luis’s wife, Cocha, and their three children, ages 7, 13, and 15, left inconsolable, facing immediate financial hardship and emotional trauma after losing the household’s sole provider. That human cost is the entire point of the frame. Guzy’s image strips the debate down to one family and one moment, which is exactly why it cuts through a saturated news cycle and reads as evidence, not illustration.

The winning frame came from Guzy’s larger Stories entry, ICE Arrests at New York Court, which also won in the Stories category for North and Central America. World Press Photo chose the Photo of the Year from 42 regional winners selected out of 57,376 photographs submitted by 3,747 photographers in 141 countries. The final round was judged by a global jury led by Kira Pollack, with Saber Nuraldin’s Aid Emergency in Gaza and Victor J. Blue’s The Trials of the Achi Women named as the two finalists.

The award also lands in the middle of a much wider policy story. World Press Photo says the enforcement climate around courthouses changed sharply in 2025, after ICE and the Department of Homeland Security issued guidance on January 21 allowing certain civil immigration actions in or near courthouses, following a January 20 DHS directive. DHS later said on May 6, 2025, that it had rescinded Biden-era courthouse guidance. World Press Photo says those shifts helped drive a 2,450% increase in the detention of people with no prior criminal record, and that a 2025 policy waiver allowed the 10th floor of the Javits building to function as a long-term detention site.

That is why Guzy’s picture matters beyond awards season. It is not just a technically strong documentary frame from one of the few federal buildings where photographers are allowed access. It is a public record of how immigration enforcement reached into a courthouse and left a Bronx family shattered in the hallway outside.