A coalition of immigrant legal-services organisations filed a federal lawsuit in Boston on Wednesday, October 28, challenging a new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policy that stops disclosing the locations of thousands of detained people — a change the groups say makes clients effectively disappear from the government's own online locator tool, cutting them off from their families and their lawyers.

Source: National Immigration Law Center

The case, Greater Boston Legal Services et al. v. Mullin, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts on behalf of four organisations: Greater Boston Legal Services, the Rian Immigrant Center, the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project and the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights. The plaintiffs are represented by the National Immigration Law Center, the National Immigration Project, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Massachusetts and Annelise Araujo Law.

What changed in September

For more than 16 years, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published the location of detained noncitizens through its Online Detainee Locator System, known as ODLS — a public search tool that families, attorneys and advocates used to learn which facility held a person and where that facility was. In September, according to the lawsuit, DHS abruptly changed course: it stopped sharing the locations of detained people who have final orders of removal, both in the locator system and in direct responses to queries from family members and attorneys.

The Associated Press reported on September 21 that ICE began removing individuals with final orders of removal from the locator on September 15, and that the change was not publicly announced. The Washington Post reported that the new policy also bars immigration officials from sharing the information with attorneys or relatives by phone. Press summaries of the AP reporting put the number of people removed from the locator at more than 16,000, out of nearly 69,000 people in ICE custody at the time.

What the lawsuit alleges

The complaint alleges that ICE's implementation of the policy is arbitrary and capricious and therefore violates the Administrative Procedure Act, the federal law that governs how agencies make and change rules. It also alleges violations of the plaintiffs' First Amendment rights, and violations of the Freedom of Information Act because, the groups say, the government failed to publish the details of its new policy. The plaintiffs are asking the court to vacate — strike down — the policy, and they say they will shortly file a motion asking the court to stay, or pause, the policy while the case proceeds. Independent coverage of the filing described it as seeking an order that would halt the practice and force authorities to disclose facility information.

In a joint statement, attorneys for the plaintiffs called the policy one of 'mass disappearance': "By choosing to hide even the most basic information about thousands of people in its custody, the government is unlawfully blocking their access to legal counsel and the courts, and keeping desperate loved ones in the dark," the statement said. "This shockingly malicious policy was implemented suddenly, without any legal basis or justification, and with immediate, devastating impacts for our clients and the people they serve." Those characterisations are the plaintiffs' allegations; the government has not yet filed its response in the case.

Why a location matters legally

The groups argue that a final removal order is not the end of a person's legal options. A detained person may still ask a court to stay the removal, seek to reopen the case, apply for protection against return to danger, or challenge the detention itself — but each of those steps depends on a lawyer being able to find and speak to the client, often within days or hours of a scheduled deportation. A federal habeas petition challenging custody, the advocates note, ordinarily has to identify the custodian and be filed where the person is held, which is impossible if the government will not say where that is.

Jacquelynne J. Bowman, executive director of Greater Boston Legal Services, said: "No one should be denied a meaningful opportunity to defend their rights because the government has made it impossible for their lawyer to find them." Jackie Kelley of the Rian Immigrant Center said: "If we cannot locate our clients, we cannot pursue the relief for which they are legally eligible." Laura St. John, legal director at the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, said thousands of people are no longer shown on the locator, "making it impossible for attorneys to locate their clients or identify people who might need emergency legal assistance." And Aimee Mayer-Salins of the Amica Center said: "When someone you love is in ICE custody, they shouldn't simply disappear into a black hole. Families deserve to know where their loved ones are being held."

The government side, and the pressure already building

Responding to the earlier AP reporting on the locator change, DHS said detainees can communicate with family members and lawyers, that its enforcement follows constitutional due process, and that people with final deportation orders should be removed — a response that addressed communication and removal policy but did not explain why location records were removed from the public tool. That account is DHS's stated position; the department had not publicly responded to Wednesday's lawsuit at the time of publication.

The lawsuit lands on ground that was already contested. More than 40 members of Congress, in a letter led by Representatives Luz Rivas and Veronica Escobar, demanded that ICE restore transparency in the detainee locator system, writing that ICE "should ensure that detainees remain locatable to their families and legal representatives instead of trying to hide these individuals' whereabouts." A coalition submission dated September 30 to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances described cases including a mother and daughter whose records disappeared from the locator until a federal judge required ICE to disclose where they were held. Separately, The Marshall Project filed its own federal lawsuit last week arguing that ICE's refusal to disclose detainee names and locations violates the Freedom of Information Act. The Washington Post reported that the Amica Center alone lost track of 17 clients in the locator after the change.

What this means for diaspora families — and what happens next

For immigrant families across the United States — including Punjabi families in California's Central Valley, New York, New Jersey and other diaspora hubs — the locator has been the first phone call and the first search when a relative is picked up: it is how a family learns whether a person is held nearby or has been transferred across the country, and how a lawyer knows where to file emergency papers. The plaintiffs say that since September, for people with final removal orders, that search simply comes back empty. Readers should note the distinction the case turns on: the existence of the September change is documented in AP and Washington Post reporting and in the congressional letter; how the policy operates in individual cases, and whether it is lawful, is what the Boston court is now being asked to decide.