DHS Policy Hides ICE Detainee Locations From Public Database

The Department of Homeland Security has quietly adopted a policy that hides the locations of most immigrants with final deportation orders from Immigration and Customs Enforcement's public detainee database, a change now affecting tens of thousands of people in more than 300 facilities nationwide.^[1]

A DHS document obtained by the New York Times shows that as of mid-September, detainees with administratively final removal orders are removed from ICE's Online Detainee Locator System, and contractors answering calls are given a script telling relatives and lawyers that location information for those people is not public.^[1] Attorneys say the policy is already making it difficult to track clients, file last-minute court challenges and even confirm whether someone is still in the country, while families report frantic searches for loved ones who suddenly vanish from the system.^[1]

Evidence of how the policy works in practice emerged on Sept. 16, when ICE officers detained Ann Lawani, a Nigerian-born nurse and nursing professor, at her home in Lodi, California, after she dropped her daughter at school.^[1] After one brief call from an officer telling her husband she was in custody, her family and attorney spent three days trying and failing to find her in the public locator or get officials to say where she was being held.^[1] Lawyers say similar disappearances are becoming common for people in fast-track deportation, including long-time residents swept up in an enforcement push ahead of the midterm elections.

ICE's public locator has been a basic tool for families and attorneys since 2010, allowing people to search adults in civil immigration detention by name or identification number instead of calling scattered field offices. Before the shift around Sept. 15 this year, the system listed all adults in ICE custody except a narrow group, such as trafficking or domestic violence survivors protected by law, according to a lawsuit and a 2025 DHS privacy assessment it cites.^[2] The new policy carves out a far larger class: people whose deportation orders are already final, a group that averaged about 21,700 detainees on a typical day in July, or roughly 32 percent of ICE's 66,904 daily detainee population that month.^[2]

The change first surfaced publicly when the Associated Press reported in late September that final-order detainees were no longer showing up in the database, and the Washington Post later disclosed that staff had been instructed not to share those detainees' locations over the phone. Members of Congress moved quickly: on Sept. 30, 47 House Democrats led by Reps. Veronica Escobar of Texas and Robert Rivas of California demanded that acting ICE director David Venturella reverse the policy and hand over the written directive by Oct. 14, a deadline advocates say the agency ignored. Legal-aid groups escalated the fight on Oct. 28, filing a federal lawsuit in Massachusetts against DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin and ICE that argues the agency adopted a sweeping change in secret and is effectively blocking judicial review of deportation cases.^[2]

In court papers, Greater Boston Legal Services and three partner organizations say the policy is especially consequential because immigration courts are issuing an average of 31,319 in absentia removal orders per month this year, decisions that become final if not challenged in time and whose recipients fall into the hidden category once detained.^[2] Many of those people can still pursue motions to reopen their cases, petitions for review in federal appeals courts, or habeas corpus lawsuits challenging prolonged detention, but those filings usually must be made in the federal district where the person is held; lawyers say that becomes nearly impossible when clients can be moved repeatedly on short notice and their locations are kept from public view. The complaint cites data from Human Rights First showing more than 1,200 domestic transfer flights in September, about 42 per day, as evidence that ICE's transfer-heavy system already strains legal access even without a blackout on location information.^[2]

ICE, in statements to local and national outlets, has defended the shift by saying detainees with final orders are being prioritized for removal and that all people in custody have access to phones to call lawyers and relatives. The agency has also said that individuals can be temporarily missing from the locator for several reasons, including during transport, at their own request, or because of pending legal filings, and has not publicly released the full text of the new directive or a detailed rationale for treating final-order detainees differently.^[3] Immigrant-rights attorneys counter that phone access is no substitute for being able to reliably find someone in custody, especially when families fear deportation is imminent; Cassandra Charles of the National Immigration Law Center told the Times that making people disappear from the system to speed deportations has "life-altering and devastating" consequences for immigrants and their U.S.-based loved ones.^[1]

1. New York Times
2. U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts
3. KPBS