Carol Guzy has won the 2026 World Press Photo of the Year for "Separated by ICE," her photograph of an Ecuadorian father detained by U.S. immigration agents after an immigration court hearing in lower Manhattan.

Made inside the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building — one of the few federal spaces where journalists still receive working access — the image shows Luis being led away by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. In the foreground, his wife Cocha clutches the couple's three children, ages 7, 13, and 15.

"Please understand we are coming here for a better opportunity, not just for ourselves, but for our children," Cocha said, after her husband was taken. Luis had served as the household's sole provider. The family says he has no criminal record.

How does the picture turn policy into faces?

Guzy returned to the same Javits hallway day after day. "Separated by ICE" emerges from one vantage point, where she documented repeated arrests of migrants appearing in good faith. The image belongs to her larger series "ICE Arrests at New York Court," made for The Miami Herald and distributed through ZUMA Press and iWitness. A project of the same name received additional recognition in this year's contest.

The jury selection puts a human frame around a policy that has converted immigration courthouses into sites of state-enforced family separation. Guzy, in her acceptance remarks, credited the families who let her record their experience, calling the award theirs.

What did the two finalists capture?

Two further images completed this year's shortlist. The first, "Aid Emergency in Gaza," is by Palestinian photographer Saber Nuraldin for EPA Images. It shows Palestinians climbing onto an aid truck as it enters the Gaza Strip through the Zikim Crossing on July 27, 2025, during what the Israeli military described as a "tactical suspension" of operations to allow humanitarian aid through.

The picture sits inside a year in which a United Nations-mandated inquiry concluded that conditions in Gaza constitute genocide — a designation Israel disputes. UN reporting places at least 2,435 Palestinians killed at or near aid distribution sites between late May and early October 2025. Even after a subsequent ceasefire, more than 75 percent of the population faces food insecurity, according to agencies cited alongside the award.

Why does a Guatemalan courthouse close the trio?

The second finalist, "The Trials of the Achi Women" by U.S. photographer Victor J. Blue for The New York Times Magazine, shows Doña Paulina Ixpatá Alvarado standing with fellow Maya Achi women outside a Guatemala City courthouse on May 30, 2025. Earlier that day, three former civil-defense patrollers received 40-year sentences for rape and crimes against humanity.

The case drew on testimony from 36 Indigenous women who came forward in 2011, many living alongside their abusers in the same rural communities for years. The jury singled out Blue's choice to depict the plaintiffs in collective stillness rather than visible distress, calling the image a study in restraint that reframes how survivors of war-time sexual violence appear in visual journalism.

When and where does the work travel next?

The three pictures anchor the World Press Photo Exhibition 2026, which opens April 24 at De Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam before traveling to more than 60 cities worldwide.