Last year, when a judge ordered the Trump Administration to improve conditions at the immigration center at the Jacob K Javits Federal Building in New York City, the images used to show the “deplorable” conditions were taken from security camera footage. But even as photojournalists were limited to public hallways, one longtime photojournalist captured an emotional image that represents the reality of US immigration policies.
Separated by ICE, a photograph depicting children clinging to their father after an immigration hearing, taken by photojournalist Carol Guzy with ZUMA Press, iWitness and the Miami Herald, has been selected as the Photo of the Year by the World Press Photo.
The image is one of many that Guzy captured returning to that same hallway across multiple days, which make up the photo story ICE Arrests at New York Court. That photo story was among the 42 winners of the World Press Photo Contest, but now one image from the story has also received the contest’s Photo of the Year recognition.
Article continues below“This award highlights the critical importance of the story worldwide,” Guzy said. “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.”
The photograph shows the family of an Ecuadorian migrant named Luis clinging to him after a hearing separated Luis from his family.
“This image shows the inconsolable grief of children losing their father in a place built for justice,” World Press Photo Executive Director Joumana El Zein Khoury said. “It is a stark and necessary record of family separation following the US reform policies. 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.”
The 2026 photojournalism competition was the ninth World Press Photo Award for Guzy, who was also the first journalist to be awarded a fourth Pulitzer.
Along with the Photo of the Year, the jury also announced two finalists.
Aid Emergency in Gaza by Saber Nuraldin of EPA Images shows Palestinians climbing an aid truck to get flour. The judges commented that the image creates a visual sense of scale and urgency of famine during the war in Gaza. According to the UN, at least 2,435 people seeking food were killed near food distribution sites between May and October 2025 – Nuraldin’s photograph was taken during that time frame in July.
Victor J. Blue, of the New York Times Magazine, won finalist honors with the image The Trials of the Achi Women. The photograph is a portrait of several Achi women outside a courthouse in Guatemala City following the sentencing of three former civil defense patrollers convicted of rape and crimes against humanity. The women broke their silence after four decades of living in the same community, and a 14-year legal battle followed.
“Photojournalism has never been easy work,” said Kira Pollack, the 2026 global jury chair for the contest. “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.”
Earlier this month, the World Press Photo announced 42 winners across the globe telling stories ranging from a polar bear on a dead whale to socializing with a robot. The Photo of the Year and the two finalists receive a Fujifilm GFX100 II camera and their choice of two lenses (or one lens and a GFX100RF). The Photo of the Year winner also receives an additional 10,000 euros (about $11,700 / £8670 / AU$16,350).
The entire gallery from the 42 winning photographers will be part of a traveling World Press Photo Exhibition.
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