Status as of September 29, 2026. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has stopped publicly listing many detainees with final removal orders in its Online Detainee Locator System. According to current and former ICE officials cited by the Associated Press, the unannounced change took effect September 15. Court-ordered exceptions remain at several locations, and ICE has not publicly announced or explained the policy.
The change removes a major source of public information about where thousands of people in ICE custody are being held. Attorneys and relatives previously used the Online Detainee Locator System, or ODLS, to identify detention locations, including after people were transferred from one facility to another.
Three current and former ICE officials told the Associated Press that detainees subject to final removal orders were removed from the locator beginning September 15. ICE did not confirm or deny the change in its response to the AP. Its public locator page continues to describe ODLS generally as a system for locating people currently in ICE custody, without publicly explaining the exclusion of detainees with final orders.
How many detainees may be affected
ICE data obtained by the Deportation Data Project, an initiative based at the University of California, Berkeley and UCLA, showed that nearly 16,000 people booked into ICE detention in July had final removal orders. That represented more than one-third of the month's bookings.
ICE detention facilities held more than 65,000 people as of early July, according to the data cited by the AP. Michelle Méndez, legal director at the National Immigration Project, estimated that roughly 30% of the detained population likely had final removal orders.
Those figures do not establish the exact number removed from the locator. They indicate the scale of the population potentially affected by the policy.
What changed in the ICE locator
ICE launched the Online Detainee Locator System in 2010 to allow family members, legal representatives and members of the public to search for people in immigration detention. Before the system was created, locating a detained person often required contacting an ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations field office or an individual detention facility.
The public system already excluded some categories. ICE states that ODLS does not display records for people under 18. The agency's materials have also described limitations involving people recently taken into custody, people in transit and some individuals held by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The September change created a new exclusion based on the existence of a final removal order, according to the officials and attorneys interviewed by the AP.
Atenas Burrola Estrada, a deputy program director at the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, told the AP that all 17 of her clients with final removal orders had disappeared from the system. Attorney My Khanh Ngo of the American Civil Liberties Union said eight Somali men detained at the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay were also no longer listed.
Some facilities are covered by court orders
The policy does not operate uniformly at every detention location. According to the AP, detainees at the Adelanto facility in California and at temporary holding sites in Minneapolis, New York City and suburban Chicago remain subject to court orders requiring ICE to place detainee information in the locator promptly after arrival.
Those court-ordered requirements create exceptions to the broader removal of people with final orders from the public system.
Why a final removal order does not always end litigation
A final removal order generally means that an immigration judge has ordered a person's removal and that the order became administratively final after an appeal was completed, waived or not filed. A final order can also result from an in absentia proceeding when a person does not appear for a hearing.
But a final order does not necessarily mean that every possible legal proceeding has ended. Depending on the circumstances, litigation can continue through a motion to reopen, a petition for judicial review, a habeas corpus case or an emergency challenge to a particular removal.
Some people with final removal orders also have protection against removal to a particular country because of a risk of persecution or torture. Separate litigation has addressed the procedures required when DHS seeks to remove a person to a third country that was not previously designated in the removal proceedings.
For attorneys representing such detainees, knowing the person's location can become especially important when ICE transfers the person shortly before a planned removal.
Attorneys say transfers make the change more consequential
Greg Chen, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told the AP that the change has caused families to lose track of detained relatives and has complicated attorneys' ability to communicate with clients.
ICE frequently transfers detainees between facilities. A person who disappears from the locator may therefore have been transferred, placed in transit, removed from the country or excluded from ODLS under the new policy. The public search result itself does not explain which of those circumstances applies.
The Washington Post separately reported that the policy also limits the ability of ICE personnel to provide location information by telephone in some circumstances.
ICE has not publicly announced the change
ICE did not announce the September 15 change through a news release or a public policy document. In its statement to the Associated Press, the agency neither confirmed nor denied the exclusion of people with final removal orders.
ICE said it was prioritizing detainees with final removal orders for deportation while facing what it described as a "historic number of injunctions" blocking individual removals.
The Department of Homeland Security has argued more broadly that people with final removal orders have received due process through immigration proceedings. Attorneys and immigrant-rights organizations counter that later legal proceedings can still affect detention, the validity of an order or the country to which a person may lawfully be removed.
What the ICE locator currently says
ICE's public ODLS page states that the system can be used to locate a person who is currently in ICE custody or who has been in U.S. Customs and Border Protection custody for more than 48 hours. The page does not explain the September exclusion for people with final removal orders.
The same page lists ICE's Detention Reporting and Information Line, or DRIL, as a channel for detention-related inquiries and basic case information. The existence of that service does not restore the public location information that disappeared from ODLS.
Frequently asked questions
Are people with final removal orders still visible in ICE's public detainee locator?
Many are not. According to current and former ICE officials cited by the Associated Press, ICE stopped publicly listing detainees with final removal orders beginning September 15, 2026. Court-ordered exceptions apply at several detention locations.
Does a final removal order mean that no further court action is possible?
No. Depending on the case, proceedings can continue through motions to reopen, habeas corpus petitions, petitions for judicial review or litigation over the country to which a person may be removed.
Did ICE publicly announce the change?
No public ICE announcement explaining the September 15 change had been identified as of September 29, 2026. ICE neither confirmed nor denied the policy in its statement to the Associated Press.
Official sources and reporting
Disclaimer: Factum Immigration is a journalistic publication. This article is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or create an attorney-client relationship. Immigration laws, regulations and agency practices may change. For advice about an individual case, consult a qualified immigration attorney or an accredited representative.