U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement stopped publicly revealing the locations of detainees subject to final deportation orders in its online detainee locator system on September 15, 2025. The change applies to detainees who have received final orders of removal from an immigration court.

The agency did not publicize the modification to the system it launched in 2010 to allow relatives, lawyers, and the public to search for people in custody. In a statement, ICE did not confirm or deny the change but said detainees with final removal orders were being prioritized for deportation.

Greg Chen, Senior Director of Government Relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, described the impact on legal representation. "On the attorney side, this has serious implications for the ability to contact their client. It certainly has implications about how it will interfere with the attorney-client relationship," Chen said.

Chen added that families face uncertainty regarding the status of detained relatives. "Families are freaking out because they think the person has been deported, and they don’t know where the person might be," he said.

Atenas Burrola Estrada, Deputy Program Director at the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, observed the effect on her caseload. "Every single one of our clients who has a final order has disappeared from the locator," Estrada said. She reported that 17 of her clients with final orders had disappeared from the locator as of Monday.

Michelle Méndez, Legal Director at the National Immigration Project, criticized the policy as a violation of norms. "To me, it’s just another iteration of disappearing people. Why would we do that in the United States of America? It’s something we’d hear about in another country and be concerned about individual rights and due process," Méndez said.

The Department of Homeland Security argues that people subject to final removal orders have received due process. This process usually means an immigration judge ordered removal after a hearing, including cases where immigrants failed to show up, and the decision was affirmed on appeal or not appealed.

Detainees with final removal orders retain options to challenge detention and removal, including seeking to reopen the case or filing a habeas petition. Federal judges have granted thousands of rulings ordering that detainees be released or granted bond hearings.

ICE stated it faces a "historic number of injunctions" from courts stopping individual removals. Eight Somali men detained at the U.S. military base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have disappeared from the locator system.

The practice does not apply to detainees held at the Adelanto detention facility in California. It also does not apply to detainees held at temporary holding facilities in Minneapolis, New York City, or suburban Chicago. Judges have ordered ICE to list detainees in these facilities in the online locator promptly upon arrival as part of litigation over detention practices. Minors, people held by U.S. Customs and Border Protection for less than 48 hours, and detainees being transported are not included in the online locator system.

Why It Matters

The removal of location data restricts access to information necessary for attorneys to file habeas petitions or motions to reopen cases. This limitation affects the ability of legal representatives to provide counsel to individuals who retain the right to challenge their detention despite having final removal orders.

The discrepancy in locator availability across different facilities, such as Adelanto versus others, reflects ongoing litigation over detention practices. Federal court orders require prompt listing in specific locations, creating a fragmented system where visibility depends on geography and legal status. "If you can’t find your client, don’t know what’s happening to your client, you can’t get that information to the court to stop their removal," My Khanh Ngo said.

Timeline

ICE initiated the online detainee locator system in 2010 to allow relatives, lawyers, and the public to search for people in custody. Nearly 16,000 people arrested and booked into ICE detention in July were subject to final removal orders. The 16,000 detainees with final removal orders represented more than a third of overall ICE bookings in July.

ICE detention facilities held more than 65,000 people as of early July.

What's New

A study titled "Modeling COVID-19 and Its Impacts on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Detention Facilities, 2020" was published in 2020 in Journal of Urban Health. A study titled The Forgotten Frontier - Healthcare for Transgender Detainees in Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detention was published in 2008 in bepress Legal Repository.