2025 Feature
First Place - 2025 Feature
BROKEN FAMILY Anita falls asleep embracing her girls, Scarlett, 10 and Ashley, 3 holding onto fragile hope as they await an uncertain destiny at their apartment in Brooklyn NY on October 4, 2025. The migrant family from Ecuador struggles after her husband Hermel was detained by ICE following his immigration court hearing leaving a broken family. Children are traumatized, caught in the crossfire of Trumps controversial immigration reform policies amid a mass deportation effort. Why are you taking away my father from me, Scarlett wept. He is the only one I have. Her biological dad was murdered, and this is a second painful loss in her young life. She was emotionally shut down, making drawings asking Jesus to protect her Papa and watching TikTok videos about saying goodbye. Ashley just celebrated her 3rd birthday without her father who is missing these moments in the life of his precious, precocious daughter as he languishes in detention. They are working to secure his release, insisting he has been wrongly accused. She tells him, Surrender to God. Youre not a criminal Youre not alone, you have us. They had traversed the notorious Darien Gap following their dream of a safer life in America. Anita seeks help at local churches assisting migrants with legal aid, therapy, and prayer as the family slowly adapts to a new normal without him. Her own hearing is looming. There is a vast political divide. Some protest, decrying a lack of due process. Others applaud. And daily, detentions continue.
Carol Guzy
Second Place - 2025 Feature
Students take a break to play games at a Childrens Center in Igamba, Uganda. The center is used to teach and provide clothing and food for many who live in the area. June 18, 2025
Billy Weeks
Third Place - 2025 Feature
Samantha Kortenhoeven hits her vape in her bathtub on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, at her home in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. Kortenhoeven has very little time to herself, and the care she does show herself is in the form of a bubble bath once a week while listening to My Favorite Things from The Sound of Music. Balancing nursing school and caring for her mother with dementia around the clock, 34-year-old Kortenhoeven perseveres and longs for a better road ahead. Despite the difficult relationship with her mother and healing from past traumas, Samantha is determined to graduate and build a future for herself.
Abbey Cutrer
Honorable Mention - 2025 Feature
A young Congolese refugee plays on a swing under heavy rain as refugees await relocation at the Cishemere Transit Center near Buganda, on May 6, 2025. In February 2025, the Rwanda-backed M23 armed rebel group launched a rapid offensive and took control of Bukavu, the South Kivu provincial capital, after clashes with Congolese forces. Looting and heavy shelling in parts of the city left streets empty, morgues and hospitals overwhelmed, and triggered mass displacement. As a result, neighbouring Burundi received some 10,000 refugees within three days and more than 70,000 by April, the largest influx the country has seen in decades.
Luis Tato / Agence France-Presse
Honorable Mention - 2025 Feature
ALTADENA, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 15: Jose Luis Martinez works on his laptop under the RV where he currently lives, next to the remains of his uninsured home which was destroyed in the Eaton Fire, on April 15, 2025 in Altadena. Martinez is a retired electrician and is making plans to rebuild. The January 7 Eaton and Palisades fires claimed 31 lives and left more than 16,000 structures destroyed.
Mario Tama / Getty Images