US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is erasing immigrants with final deportation orders from a searchable online database, leaving families and attorneys in the dark as they try to find out where someone has been taken.
The Washington Post reports that the new policy also bars immigration officers from sharing information about a detainee’s location with their attorneys or relatives by phone, according to two former Homeless Security officials briefed on the change. Immigration officials did not issue a public announcement about the new policy, which took effect Sept.15.
Trump administration officials are imposing the policy at a time when they are attempting to deport 1 million people a year using highly unorthodox tactics. Officials have deported immigrants to countries where they aren’t citizens, denied people bond hearings under a reinterpretation of a 1996 law, and fast-tracked removals for peace in the country for less than two years.
The federal courts have checked those powers, but attorneys say they cannot file federal lawsuits challenging a detainee’s arrest if they do not know where they are.
ICE did not confirm or deny the change to the agency’s detainee database, which was first reported by the Associated Press. In a statement, ICE said immigrants with final removal orders “are being prioritized” for deportation and that all detainees have access to phones.
However, making a call from ICE detention can be challenging. There are often long lines, and detainees must pay. Attorneys say the online database is the faster way to find out where someone is being held.
Atenas Burrola Estrada, deputy program director at the Amica Centre for Immigrant Rights, which provides legal services for detainees, said at least 17 of their clients abruptly vanished from the online locator in recent days. At first, she said, she thought it was “a glitch.” Then she said they realized their clients had been deleted from the system.
“The administration is detaining individuals … and disappearing them, making it impossible not just for their attorneys and for legal service providers to find them, but also for their family,” Burrola Estrada said.
My Khanh Ngo, a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberty Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said eight of her clients, who are detained at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba and are plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against the facility, are among those no longer showing up on the locator.
Lawyers must file habeas corpus petitions – federal lawsuits seeking someone’s release – in the judicial district where the detainee is being held . Many attorneys file those petitions together with a copy of a detainee’s entry in the “Online Detainee Locator System” to show that the judge has jurisdiction over the case.
ICE has the power to transfer detainees to facilities thousands of miles from their homes, their families and their attorneys. Many are transferred multiple times. That makes the locator a key tool in keeping track of where someone is.
Attorneys say the locator helps them pinpoint where clients are, establish communication and set up appointments to gather evidence for their cases.
Relatives also use the detainee locator to check on loved ones, deposit money in their commissary accounts so they can purchase food and personal hygiene items and drop off prescription medication.
Before the database was created, detainees often vanished into the system. Some were deported before anyone could find them.
