On September 15, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed thousands of immigrants with final deportation orders from its public online detainee locator, current and former ICE officials told the Associated Press.

What did ICE change?

ICE stopped listing detainees subject to final removal orders on the agency's public website. The Washington Post reported on September 21, 2026 that the new policy also bars immigration officers from sharing a detainee's location with their attorneys or relatives.

ICE declined to confirm or deny the change. In a statement to the Post, the agency said immigrants with final removal orders "are being prioritized" for deportation. ICE added that all detainees have access to phones.

The detainee locator, hosted at locator.ice.gov, has long served as the main tool for families and counsel to confirm where an immigration detainee is being held. Removing entries from the public list marks the first time ICE has categorically pulled a class of detainees from that record.

Which facilities are exempt?

A federal judge ordered ICE to keep listing detainees at four sites in the online locator:

• Temporary holding facilities in Minneapolis
• Temporary holding facilities in New York City
• Temporary holding facilities in suburban Chicago
• The detention facility in Adelanto, California

Entries from those four locations remain visible on the public system.

How many people does the change cover?

ICE detention facilities held more than 65,000 people as of early July 2026. The agency booked nearly 16,000 new arrestees subject to final removal orders into ICE detention during July, according to data the Deportation Data Project at UC Berkeley and UCLA obtained from ICE.

Those 16,000 July arrivals, plus longer-held detainees whose cases reached a final order, make up the population the policy now treats as invisible to outside inquiries.

Why are lawyers raising alarms?

Attorneys say the change makes last-minute legal challenges harder. Greg Chen, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told the Post: "Families are freaking out because they think the person has been deported and they don't know where the person might be. On the attorney side, this has serious implications for the ability to contact their client."

Immigration advocates note that habeas corpus petitions must generally be filed in the federal district where the detainee is physically held. Without a confirmed location, lawyers say they cannot identify the correct court or meet filing deadlines that can run in days.

What is the government's position?

The Department of Homeland Security argues that people with final removal orders have already received due process in immigration court. Detainees can still ask a judge to release them on constitutional grounds, DHS officials said.

The September policy shift comes against a sustained push to accelerate removals. ICE and DHS have publicly framed faster deportation as a top priority, and the locator change fits that posture, former officials told the AP.

What happens next?

Attorneys and immigrant rights groups are expected to press for more transparency, both through court filings and congressional inquiries. The four exempt facilities operate under separate judicial orders, and advocates may seek to expand those orders nationally.

For families trying to locate a relative in ICE custody, the practical change is immediate: a name that previously returned a facility and an ICE field office now returns nothing.