On Sept. 15, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed all detainees who were subject to final deportation orders from the online detainee locator system. This single action has left thousands of families scrambling to find their loved ones as their locations have seemingly been wiped from existence.
Within the past year and a half, ICE has detained nearly 70,000 Immigrants, with the majority having no criminal record. Over 100 of these individuals have been certified American citizens who were detained solely based on racial profiling. Previously, under the Obama administration, the Online Detainee Locator System was established so all individuals held in ICE custody for over 48 hours had a publicly available location that could be easily accessed. This resource served for over a decade as a valuable tool to coordinate resources for immigrants facing deportation. It gave families comfort knowing their loved ones had a known location in the country. It also made it easier for legal counsel to work towards preventing deportation and posting bonds.
The displacement of final order detainees from this system has taken away these vital resources and prevented the upholding of rights for these immigrants, like visitation from family and the right to legal counsel. This removal has revealed a pattern of gross mistreatment and unexplained disappearances of immigrant detainees in ICE custody.
This is not a new phenomenon. In 2025, ICE opened an immigrant “detention center” in South Florida. The location was dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” due to the inhumane living conditions and lack of access to food that detainees faced while in custody, with some describing it as “a form of torture”. Many of their practices are now being looked back on as strictly unconstitutional. Many detainees received punishments by being forced to sit in cages the size of phone booths for hours in the Florida heat.
By its closure in June 2025, approximately 1800 individuals had been arrested and held at this center. However, according to Project Censored, by December of the same year, around 800 of those detainees had disappeared from the ICE database, with 450 more listed as “Call ICE for Details”. These individuals were also completely wiped from the record without proper notification, with their locations a mystery and their legal counsel and families unable to reach them.
Unfortunately, these actions are unsurprising. ICE has notoriously performed unlawful actions against detainees, including 170 illegal deportations directly performed against court orders. In addition, multiple people have lost their lives in incidents involving ICE, including detainees and civilians intervening in the gross mistreatment by officials.
For nearly two years, ICE has acted far beyond the scope of legality. The disappearance of individuals from federal databases has called into question how far the institution should be allowed to go and what regulation for the department looks like. The scope of ICE has only increased, and with it, the fear of what will come from an unchecked government body set on the systemic removal of immigrants from the country.Â