ICE Erased Over 20,000 Detainees From Its Public Locator, Then Gave Staff a Script To Deny Families Answers

United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement has quietly stripped more than 20,000 detainees with final deportation orders from its public online tracking database, leaving desperate relatives and legal counsel unable to locate individuals in federal custody.

Implemented around 15 September 2026 without formal public notice, the sweeping policy shift removed individuals subject to administratively final removal orders from the Online Detainee Locator System across nearly every detention facility nationwide.

According to internal Department of Homeland Security documents reviewed by The New York Times, call centre contractors fielding telephone enquiries from worried relatives were provided with an explicit script instructing them to state that custody records were not public.

Immigration attorneys warned that the sudden digital blackout makes it virtually impossible to mount timely legal challenges before detainees are transferred across state lines or placed onto international deportation flights.

In response to the unannounced restriction, four prominent legal aid organisations filed a federal lawsuit in Massachusetts on 28 October, accusing the administration of violating the First Amendment, the Administrative Procedure Act, and federal freedom-of-information statutes.

Vanished From the Locator

The change does not apply at four locations. Three current and former ICE officials confirmed the change to the Associated Press in September. Courts had ordered prompt listings at Adelanto in California and at holding sites in Minneapolis, New York City and suburban Chicago.

The numbers are large. Nearly 16,000 people booked into ICE detention in July had final removal orders, more than a third of bookings, according to data obtained by the Deportation Data Project, the AP reported.

Plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit cited July detention data showing an average daily population of 66,904, including 21,700 people with final removal orders, about 32 per cent. On that basis, they estimate more than 20,000 people were affected when the policy began, though that figure is an estimate rather than an official count.

A Script for Callers

The Homeland Security document announcing the change included a script for contractors handling enquiries. Callers asking about affected immigrants were to be told that the information was not public.

Lawyers say the effect is the same either way. 'Every single one of our clients who has a final order has disappeared from the locator,' Atenas Burrola Estrada of the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights told the AP.

'To me, it's just another iteration of disappearing people,' said Michelle Mendez of the National Immigration Project. The ACLU's My Khanh Ngo warned the change could make it 'nearly impossible' to challenge removals in some cases.

Families lose track of loved ones because detainees are often moved before deportation, Greg Chen of the American Immigration Lawyers Association told the AP.

Lawsuit and Pushback

Greater Boston Legal Services, the Rian Immigrant Center, the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project and the Amica Center sued in federal court in Massachusetts.

The organisations allege that the policy breaches the Administrative Procedure Act and the First Amendment, and that the government breached the Freedom of Information Act by failing to publish it. They want the restrictions set aside and the data disclosed.

Rep. Josh Harder also raised concerns in a 20 October letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. He cited the case of detained University of San Francisco nursing professor Ann Lawani, writing in the letter that 'ICE has also reportedly pursued her removal to an undisclosed third country'.

ICE did not confirm or deny the change to the AP, saying only that detainees with final orders were being prioritised for deportation amid a 'historic number of injunctions'. The Department of Homeland Security argues that people with final removal orders have already received due process.

Advocates counter that people with final orders still have legal options, including seeking to reopen their cases or filing habeas petitions. Federal judges have issued thousands of rulings ordering releases or bond hearings, the AP reported.