Lawmakers press DHS on detainee locator

A bipartisan group of 32 lawmakers asked the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general to investigate why people in immigration detention are missing or misidentified in the federal locator system. (escobar.house.gov) Representative Veronica Escobar, Representative Lauren Underwood, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Ben Ray Luján led the letter, which Escobar’s office published on April 14, 2026. The lawmakers said Immigration and Customs Enforcement has failed to provide accurate information about where detainees are being held. (escobar.house.gov) The system at issue is the Online Detainee Locator System, a public Immigration and Customs Enforcement database that lets relatives, lawyers and advocates search by alien number, name, birth date and country of birth. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says the tool is meant to help people locate someone in custody “24 hours a day, seven days a week.” (ice.gov, locator.ice.gov) The lawmakers said Immigration and Customs Enforcement historically updated the locator within eight hours after a person arrived at a facility. They told Inspector General Joseph Cuffari that recent reports describe delays of days or weeks, and in some cases deportations before a person’s location ever appeared in the system. (escobar.house.gov) Their letter says the errors have grown worse since January 2025, with the locator sometimes showing a person at one detention center while attorneys are told the person is somewhere else. The lawmakers tied that to more frequent transfers and to detention in places outside the usual network, including military bases, field offices and state-run facilities. (escobar.house.gov) Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s own locator page now carries a court-ordered notice tied to a February 18, 2026 ruling in *Maldonado Bautista v. Noem* in the Central District of California. The page also says it cannot search for anyone under 18 and directs people who cannot find someone in the database to call the Detention Reporting and Information Line. (locator.ice.gov) That phone line runs weekdays from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern time, according to the locator site, and it handles requests for basic case information and reports of unresolved detention problems. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says family members and attorneys can also contact local Enforcement and Removal Operations field offices if the database does not return a match. (locator.ice.gov, ice.gov) The lawmakers framed the problem as one of basic access to counsel and family contact. In their letter, they wrote that without a working locator, the department is effectively creating “disappearances” on United States soil. (escobar.house.gov) The Department of Homeland Security inspector general’s public list of ongoing projects includes 2026 inspections of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities, but it does not list a detainee-locator review. The lawmakers are asking the watchdog to open that investigation now. (oig.dhs.gov, escobar.house.gov)