World Press Photo has named Separated by ICE, a photograph by Carol Guzy (ZUMA Press, iWitness, for the Miami Herald), as its Photo of the Year 2026. The image, taken on Aug. 26, 2025, in the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in New York City, shows distraught children clinging to their father, Luis, as ICE agents detain him after an immigration hearing. Luis was the family’s sole breadwinner.
The picture was made in one of the few federal-building spaces where photographers were allowed to work: a single hallway where Guzy and other visual journalists returned repeatedly to document detainments and their consequences. The photograph captures a wrenching scene of family separation in a courthouse designed to administer justice.
Joumana El Zein Khoury, executive director of World Press Photo, said the image records the inconsolable grief of children losing a parent in a place built for justice and called it a necessary witness to family separations that have followed recent U.S. immigration policies. She described the work as an example of why independent photojournalism matters.
Guzy, a four-time Pulitzer Prize winner, discussed the picture and her broader project, Ice Arrests at New York Court, in an interview. Key points from that conversation:
– Who she photographed: Asylum seekers were attending proceedings at 26 Federal Plaza in New York. ICE escalated detainments there beginning the previous May. The father in the Photo of the Year was Ecuadorian and named Luis; his wife is Cocha. Their children included a seven-year-old boy and daughters about 13 and 15. When agents detained Luis, the family was inconsolable. Guzy said she does not know their current whereabouts; they did not appear at a church that had been assisting detainee families.
– How she captured the moment: Guzy described chaotic scenes during detainments — traumatized children and spouses, family members screaming, and a dense presence of ICE agents, lawyers, court observers and photographers. ICE officers frequently waited outside courtrooms with target photographs and detained people as they exited hearings. The hallway where Guzy shot the image was one of the rare locations where journalists had access to document these events.
– Why she documented the detainments: Guzy said she was prompted to focus on immigration after seeing anti-immigrant signs at the previous year’s Republican National Convention that suggested promises of mass deportation could be acted upon. On discovering the unprecedented access at the courthouse, she began returning repeatedly, convinced that cameras needed to witness what was happening.
– The broader aftermath: Guzy compared covering the immigration crisis to reporting on a kind of internal conflict, stressing the importance of putting faces to policy impacts. Families she has followed face emotional trauma, financial hardship and long-term needs for mental-health care; she continues to track several families for months.
Guzy said she was surprised and honored by the award, framing the recognition as for the people in the photographs and everyone involved in the reporting rather than for herself. The Photo of the Year forms part of a larger body of work documenting ICE arrests at the New York court, which includes images of masked federal officers holding target photos, security personnel overcome by emotion, and detainees led in shackles through the building.
Links:
– Separated by ICE (Photo of the Year): https://www.worldpressphoto.org/collection/photo-contest/2026/Carol-Guzy-POY/1
– Ice Arrests at New York Court (Guzy’s project): https://www.worldpressphoto.org/collection/photo-contest/2026/Carol-Guzy/1
Image credit: Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press, iWitness for Miami Herald.