Distraught girls cling to their father, Luis, as ICE detains him following an immigration hearing, New York, Aug. 26, 2025. Carol Guzy/ ZUMA Press/ iWitness for Miami Herald
An image of a young girl desperately clinging to her father and grasping at his shirt as he was taken away by U.S. immigration agents has won the 2026 World Press Photo of the Year.
The photo, taken by Carol Guzy for the Miami Herald depicts the fear and chaos of an Ecuadorian migrant named Luis being dragged away from his family after an immigration hearing at a New York court on Aug. 26, 2025.
The World Press Photo Contest recognizes photojournalism and documentary photography highlighting contemporary issues. More than 3,740 photographers from 141 countries entered this year’s competition. Ms. Guzy took the top prize and Saber Nuraldin, a photographer with EPA Images, and Victor J. Blue, a New York-based photojournalist, were named as finalists.
Ms. Guzy’s photo caption states that Luis had no prior criminal record and was the household’s sole provider, according to his wife Coca. His arrest and detainment left his wife and three children – ages seven, 13 and 15 – on their own without financial stability.
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The crackdown on immigration by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has allowed Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to make arrests at schools, playgrounds and medical facilities, flooding American courts with immigration hearings. U.S. federal buildings and courthouses have since become a focal point for protests and for ICE arrests.
Ms. Guzy spent days at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in New York last summer, one of the few places media were allowed, photographing the arrests.
She started her 40-year career at the Miami Herald and moved to the Washington Post in 1988, until she left in 2014 to work freelance.
She has won four Pulitzer Prizes and was named photographer of the year eight times by the White House News Photographers Association and three times by the National Press Photographers Association.
Before the award-winning photo was taken, Ms. Guzy spotted the young girls desperately clinging to their father and she could tell they had a “clear sense of foreboding,” before entering the court room.
She said when their father came out of his hearing, ICE agents grabbed him, and the girls clung to his shirt in a futile attempt to save him.
“The desperation was pitiful to witness, they were screaming and crying,” said Ms. Guzy. “Whatever side of the immigration issue people are on, I think most can recognize kids are innocent.”
Mr. Nuraldin’s photo showed a crowd of Palestinians climbing onto an aid truck entering the Gaza Strip to get flour during the Israeli military’s suspension of humanitarian aid.
Mr. Blue’s photo for The New York Times Magazine shows Doña Paulina Ixpata Alvarado and other Indigenous Maya Achi women outside a Guatemala City courthouse. During the Guatemalan civil war, Maya Achi women experienced sexual violence from paramilitary groups. A lawsuit was launched by 36 women in 2011, and their abusers were finally brought to justice after 14 years.
The WPP Awards were started by a Dutch photojournalists’ union in 1955. The 2026 judging process took place over a period of six weeks and involved regional juries and a global jury.