Immigration and Customs Enforcement has quietly stripped thousands of detainees with final deportation orders from its public locator database, making it nearly impossible for families and attorneys to find out where their loved ones and clients actually are.
According to The New Republic, the agency made the change on September 15 without any public announcement, a move confirmed by three current and former agency officials who spoke anonymously. Immigration attorneys told the Associated Press they suddenly couldn't locate their clients in the system this week, prompting the American Immigration Lawyers Association to alert its members Friday.
The scale is staggering: roughly 16,000 people were processed into ICE detention with final removal orders in July alone, according to data from the Deportation Data Project, a joint effort by UCLA and UC Berkeley researchers. That figure represents more than a third of everyone ICE booked that month.
Greg Chen, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, described the panic spreading among affected families.
"Families are freaking out because they think the person has been deported and they don't know where the person might be," Chen told the AP.
Beyond the emotional toll, the disappearance from the database carries serious legal consequences. Without knowing where someone is being held, attorneys can't determine which federal court district to file a habeas petition in, potentially leaving ICE free to detain and deport someone before their lawyer ever gets the chance to intervene.
Not every facility is affected. Detainees held at California's Adelanto facility and temporary holding centers in Minneapolis, New York City, and suburban Chicago remain listed in the system, a carve-out that exists only because of prior litigation forcing ICE to document those specific populations immediately upon arrival.
The change fits a broader pattern of the Trump administration erecting new obstacles to legal challenges against its mass deportation push, while adding a uniquely cruel dimension: leaving families with no way to confirm whether a detained relative is safe, especially troubling given ICE's documented history of medical neglect toward people in its custody.