Carol Guzy has won the World Press Photo of the Year 2026 for "Separated by ICE," an image made for the Miami Herald on August 26, 2025, inside the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in New York City — one of the few U.S. federal buildings where photographers were granted access. The photograph shows the immediate aftermath of an immigration court hearing: Luis, an Ecuadorian migrant whom his family says has no criminal record and who served as the household's sole provider, pulled away by agents while his wife, Cocha, and their three children, aged seven, 13 and 15, look on in anguish.

Guzy did not arrive at the picture by chance. She and other photographers showed up day after day to document ICE arrests, court proceedings and the human consequences of the U.S. federal government's crackdown on immigration. "'Please understand we are coming here for a better opportunity, not just for ourselves, but for our children,' said Cocha, after her husband, Luis, was detained by ICE agents following an immigration court hearing at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building."

What the frame records is not an isolated detention but, as the citation puts it, "a policy indiscriminately applied to people who arrive for hearings in good faith." Cocha and the children were left facing immediate financial hardship and profound emotional trauma.

"This award highlights the critical importance of the story worldwide. We bear witness to the suffering of countless families, but also to their grace and resilience that transcends adversity that has been quite humbling. The courage to open up their lives to our cameras, allowed us to tell their stories. And certainly this award belongs to them, not me," Guzy said.

World Press Photo's executive director, Joumana El Zein Khoury, framed the image's significance in institutional terms. "This image shows the inconsolable grief of children losing their father in a place built for justice. It is a stark and necessary record of family separation following the US reform policies," she said. "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."

Guzy receives an additional 10,000 euro cash prize, along with a choice between a Fujifilm GFX100 II with two Fujinon GF lenses or a GFX100RF with one GF lens.

Two finalists: Gaza and Guatemala

The jury named two finalists alongside Guzy's win. Saber Nuraldin, a Palestinian photographer working in the region since 1997, was honored for "Aid Emergency in Gaza," which shows Palestinians climbing onto an aid truck carrying flour as it entered the Gaza Strip through the Zikim Crossing on July 27, 2025 — during what the Israeli military called a "tactical suspension" of operations to allow humanitarian aid through.

World Press Photo's accompanying context is stark. In 2025, famine took hold amid what an independent United Nations Human Rights Commission inquiry concluded is a genocide in Gaza, which Israel disputes. Israeli authorities imposed a complete aid blockade in March, a tactic humanitarian organizations described as the weaponization of starvation. The UN reports that between late May and early October, at least 2,435 Palestinians seeking food were killed at or near aid distribution sites. Despite an October ceasefire agreement, more than 75% of the population still face hunger and malnutrition.

Victor J. Blue's finalist image, "The Trials of the Achi Women," made for The New York Times Magazine, takes a different register. The black-and-white photograph shows Doña Paulina Ixpatá Alvarado standing with other Achi women holding roses outside a Guatemala City court on May 30, 2025 — the afternoon three former civil defense patrollers were found guilty of rape and crimes against humanity and sentenced to 40 years in prison each. Alvarado herself was held captive and assaulted for 25 days in 1983.

The picture caps a story spanning more than four decades. During the Guatemalan civil war, thousands of Maya Achi people were killed, assaulted and subjected to extreme violence, often sexual, and the surviving women lived for decades in the same communities as their abusers. In 2011, 36 surviving women launched a legal campaign; the 14-year battle ended last year. World Press Photo notes that Blue's photograph emphasizes dignity and authority rather than victimhood, depicting a moment of resounding strength at the close of a long fight. Nuraldin and Blue each also receive Fujifilm GFX100 II kits or a GFX100RF with a GF lens.

71 years of contested ground

The award continues a contest now in its 71st year. This edition drew 57,376 entries from 3,747 photographers across 141 countries, with the winners announced earlier this month before today's unveiling of the overall Photo of the Year.

Jury chair Kira Pollman's statement — attributed in the announcement to global jury chair Kira Pollack — carried a defense of the form itself. "Photojournalism has never been easy work. It has never been lucrative, or safe, or guaranteed an audience. And yet photographers go. To the courthouses and the conflict zones, to the quiet corners of the world where history is being made without witnesses. They go because they believe that seeing matters. That evidence matters."

Guzy, for her part, makes clear where the work goes next: she credits the families who opened their lives to her camera, and her ongoing documentation of ICE arrests and court proceedings continues as enforcement policy reshapes American courthouses — with photographers still pressing for access to the federal buildings where those separations happen.