A group of 36 lawmakers says the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has created "disappearances" on US soil, due to the "increasingly unreliable" online system used to track people detained by immigration authorities, according to a letter shared with the Guardian. The lawmakers are urging that the DHS inspector general's office open an investigation into the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) "online detainee locator system" (ODLS), which has been used for years by family members, attorneys and journalists to track people in the federal immigration detention system. "Since January 2025, that system has grown increasingly unreliable," the lawmakers, including Senator Ben Ray Lujn and House representatives Veronica Escobar and Lauren Underwood, say in the letter. "Without a functional locator system, DHS is effectively creating disappearances' on US soil, and we urge the DHS office of inspector general (OIG) to investigate this matter."
The scathing letter comes as the Trump administration continues with its aggressive anti-immigrant arrest, detention and deportation practices.
The ICE detention system is made up of a network of large and small facilities, jails, military bases and federal prisons, many privately owned and operated. Often the agency will quickly and quietly shuffle detained immigrants from one facility to another.
ICE created the ODLS in 2010 so family members and attorneys could quickly and accurately track people detained by ICE. Before the Trump administration, ICE added people to its locator system within eight hours of their arrival to an ICE facility. But since the Trump administration took office last year, there has been a radical increase of complaints that the ODLS is not working properly.
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