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ICYMI: Escobar, Underwood, Warren, Luján Lead 32 Lawmakers in Pressing Homeland Security Watchdog to Investigate Detainee Locator System Failures

Washington, D.C., April 14, 2026 | Abbey Thompson (202-225-4831)

Last week, Congresswoman Veronica Escobar (TX-16), along with U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) and Representative Lauren Underwood (IL-14) led 32 members of Congress in pressing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General to investigate Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) failure to provide accurate information about where detainees are being held.

The DHS Online Detainee Locator System (ODLS) allows the public to determine whether a person is in ICE custody and, if so, at which facility. ICE’s policy has historically been to update ODLS within eight hours of a person’s arrival at an ICE facility. But recent reports indicate that some individuals are not being accurately added to ODLS for days — and sometimes weeks. In some cases, individuals are deported before their location is ever added to the system.

ODLS has also become increasingly inaccurate since January 2025; in many instances, ODLS indicates that a person is being held at a particular detention center, but the facility will tell attorneys otherwise. 

The Trump administration is detaining people at unprecedented scale, exacerbating ODLS issues. There are currently more than 70,000 people in ICE custody, 80% more than  in December 2024. Frequent transfers make ODLS updates more challenging, and matters are only made worse when individuals are held in unconventional detention settings such as military bases, state-run facilities like “Alligator Alcatraz,” ICE field offices, and soon, warehouses built for storing packages.

The letter can be found in its entirety below and here.
Dear Inspector General Cuffari:
 
We seek an accounting of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) failure to ensure transparency surrounding where people in its custody are taken and held. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has long maintained an online detainee locator system (ODLS) “so that family members and attorneys can locate detainees more easily online, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.” But since January 2025, that system has grown increasingly unreliable. Without a functional locator system, DHS is effectively creating “disappearances” on U.S. soil, and we urge the DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) to investigate this matter.
 
ICE created the ODLS in 2010 with the intent to allow the public to determine whether a person is in ICE custody and, if so, at which facility. Prior to the Trump Administration, ICE maintained a practice of adding adults in its custody to the record locator within eight hours of their arrival at an ICE facility. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) also uses ICE’s ODLS and has generally added individuals to the system after 48 hours in CBP custody.
 
However, reports now indicate that many detained individuals are not showing up in the online detainee locator system in a timely fashion, if at all.5 Families and legal representatives have reported that the system can now “take two to three days or longer” to update — and sometimes weeks. Congressional offices have similarly reported trouble locating constituents in ICE and CBP custody. In some cases, individuals are deported before their location is ever added to the online locator system.
 
At times, detained individuals cannot be located because the information in the ODLS is
inaccurate. For example, one “35-year-old Cuban man could not be located at the California
detention facility where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said they had sent him,
leaving his family and attorney frantically trying to determine where he was for more than a
week.” There have been similar anecdotal reports of the locator showing that a person is
detained at a particular detention center yet facility contractors telling attorneys the individual is not at that facility. In other cases, it appears that detainees are not being added to the ODLS at all.
 
This emerging problem appears to be driven by several factors, including:
 
  • Scale of detention: Part of the problem appears to be the sheer scale of detention: there are currently more than 70,000 people in ICE custody, compared to around 39,000 as of December 2024, and the Trump Administration aims to reach a detention bed capacity of over 90,000.Expanding to detain over 80 percent more people over just one year appears to have strained ICE’s systems, including ICE’s ability to update the ODLS.
  • Number of transfers: ICE is transferring people between facilities more often than in past years — with a transfer rate more than double what it was in 2024 — introducing more errors into the system. ICE also appears to have changed how the ODLS handles the locations of individuals in the process of being transferred between facilities. Under ICE policy, the ODLS would traditionally “show that the detainee is in custody at the original facility until the detainee has arrived and been booked into the new facility.” Now, however, individuals “in transit” often do not show up in the system at all — sometimes for days at a time. And in cases where the ODLS says to contact the local field office to determine a person’s location, the field office is often unreachable.
  • Systematic failures at new facilities: There appear to be systemic ODLS failures for individuals held in this Administration’s new unconventional detention settings, which so far include military bases, ICE field offices, and state-run facilities, and may soon include warehouses built for storing packages. For example, individuals detained at Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” facility “frequently do not show up in the ICE online locator system.” Reporters could not determine “the whereabouts of two-thirds of more than 1,800 men detained during the month of July at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’” and the ODLS system simply said “‘Call ICE for details.’” Similarly, ICE field offices and CBP stations — which traditionally held detainees for just hours but are now being used to detain people for days or weeks — have failed to add individuals to the ODLS in a timely manner. According to reports, “[s]everal attorneys [have] recounted being unable to confirm with federal agencies that their clients were in fact detained in the locations, sometimes for days.”
 
When individuals in DHS custody cannot be located, their legal representation suffers. Attorneys have reported not knowing where to file a habeas petition because they do not know where their clients are located. Furthermore, detained clients face increased risk of missing court hearings or missing case deadlines when their attorneys cannot find them.
 
Families also suffer. Many have reported the terror of not knowing whether their loved one is
even still in the United States. The ODLS does not show if the person has been removed from the country, and with no information about transfers, there is no way to tell whether a person is “in the middle of a transfer between two sites or about to be deported.” Some families have reported that, by the time their loved one is found, they have already been deported. The inability to locate loved ones and clients is compounded by problems with ICE’s phone system in detention, with detained individuals increasingly reporting that they are not being permitted to make phone calls during their detention. Meanwhile, legal aid providers report being unable to reach ICE field offices when they call, even when the ODLS directs them to call the field office.
 
Some experts worry that these issues could even be intentional, alleging that ICE uses “bureaucracy and location transfers to isolate their detainees from both their families and their lawyers,” or to remove them from jurisdictions with more protective laws or more favorable judges. These concerns are not unfounded. For example, one ICE agent reportedly commented to a detainee that she was being transferred from California to Indiana “thanks to the laws in California.”
 
To understand the full scope of this problem, the reasons for the ODLS’s reporting gaps, and the impacts of these gaps on detainees and their families, we request that your office conduct an evaluation of this matter, including by addressing the following questions:
  1. Has the ODLS system suffered a reduction in timeliness and reliability since January 2025?
    1. If so, what are the primary reasons for these problems?
    2. To the extent that there has been a reduction in timeliness and reliability, how has this affected detainees’ legal rights, including access to counsel and ability to file legal documents?
    3. How quickly was the ODLS updated before January 2025 and how quickly has it been updated since January 2025?
  2. What types of location information do ICE or CBP maintain that the agencies do not add to the ODLS?
    1. What types of facilities are excluded from showing up in ODLS results, and why?
    2. Over the past year, what was the median hold time for each type of facility excluded from the ODLS?
    3. What other mechanisms, if any, are available for attorneys and family members to know where a client or loved one is being detained if the person is not added to the ODLS?
  3. What offices within ICE and CBP are charged with maintaining ODLS updates?
    1. How many full-time equivalent employees work on ODLS updates?
  4. Does ICE track how long it takes for booking information to be transmitted to the ODLS?
    1. If so, what is the average transmission time?
  5. What is the median response time to phone calls for each ICE field office that detains individuals overnight?
  6. What guidance do ICE and CBP provide for staff on use of the ODLS?
    1. What, if any, updates have been made to this guidance since January 20, 2025?
  7. Under what circumstances does ICE use “Call ICE for Details” or “Call Field Office” in the ODLS, and under what circumstances did ICE use those responses before January 20, 2025?
  8. What guidance or practices does ICE have for updating location information for individuals in ICE custody who are not at detention centers, including those at field offices and hospitals?
  9. What guidance or practices do ICE and CBP follow for updating location information for individuals in their custody who are being transferred between facilities?
    1. Specifically, has ICE or CBP provided guidance to its agents about not updating the ODLS until a person has arrived at their “final destination”? Please share a copy of any such guidance.
  10. Does the ODLS show the location of individuals detained by or on behalf of ICE at:
    1. Overseas military bases, including Guantanamo Bay;
    2. Domestic military bases;
    3. State-run immigration detention facilities;
    4. ICE field offices.
Thank you for your attention to this important matter.

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