How do I find someone ICE has detained?
Start with ICE’s online detainee locator. It needs either an A-number and country of birth, or a full name with country and date of birth. If it finds nothing, that is common in the first day or two — and there are several other places to look.
This describes how to use public government systems. It is information, not legal advice.
Start with the online locator
ICE runs a public search tool called the Online Detainee Locator System. It searches two ways:
- By A-number and country of birth. This is much more reliable. Use it if you have the number. It must be exactly nine digits: if it is shorter, add zeros at the front, so A12345678 becomes 012345678.
- By name. First name, last name and country of birth are required; date of birth is optional. The name has to match exactly — “Jon” will not find “John”, and a hyphenated surname needs its hyphen.
Name searches fail for ordinary reasons. Spelling is recorded as the officer heard it. Two surnames may have been merged into one, or the maternal surname dropped. Accents may or may not be present. Try the variations you can think of, including the name exactly as it appears on their passport or their birth certificate.
What the locator does not show
A blank result does not mean your relative is not in custody. The system has real limits:
- It cannot search for anyone under 18.
- It covers people in ICE custody, and people held by Customs and Border Protection for more than 48 hours. Someone held by a local jail on a detainer, by CBP for less than 48 hours, or by the Marshals Service will not appear.
- There is a lag after an arrest. Records often take a day or more to show up.
- People released from ICE custody drop out of it after 60 days.
- ICE leaves some people out of it on purpose, for safety or security reasons.
- Unaccompanied children are in a different system entirely, run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement rather than ICE.
The A-number is the thing to get
The alien registration number is seven to nine digits, usually written with an A in front of it. Every part of the system is organised around it: the locator, the immigration court, the bond process, a lawyer pulling the file.
It appears on ICE paperwork and on any prior immigration document — a work permit, a green card, a previous notice from the immigration court. If your relative can read it to you on a call, write it down and read it back digit by digit.
If the locator finds nothing
- Wait and try again. Search again in a few hours and again the next morning. This is genuinely the most common answer.
- Check the local jail. If they were arrested by police rather than by ICE, they may still be in county custody with an ICE detainer attached — a request that the jail hold them for up to 48 hours, not counting weekends and holidays, after they would otherwise be released. Most county sheriffs publish an inmate search.
- Call the ICE field office for the region where they were picked up. Contact details are on ICE’s field office directory.
- Call ICE’s Detention Reporting and Information Line at 1-888-351-4024, Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern. It takes requests for basic case information, and Spanish-speaking operators are available.
- Try the immigration court’s system. If you have the A-number, EOIR automated case information will tell you whether there is a case and when the next hearing is. There is also an automated phone line, 1-800-898-7180.
- Ask a local legal-aid organisation. Groups that work with a particular facility often know where people are being taken this week. The national legal services directory lists providers by state.
Once you have found them
Write down the facility name, its city and its state. The location matters more than families expect. A request for a bond hearing goes to the immigration court covering the place of detention, and that court follows its own federal appeals circuit — and the circuits disagree about whether some people can get a bond hearing at all. See can a detained person ask for a bond hearing?
Look up the facility on ICE’s detention facility list for its phone number, visiting hours and rules on money and mail. Each facility sets its own, and they are not consistent.
About phone calls
In most facilities, detained people can call out but cannot receive calls. Calls are usually collect or paid from an account you set up in advance through the facility’s phone provider, and they are expensive.
Assume calls are recorded and monitored. Legal calls with an attorney are treated differently, but ordinary family calls should not be used to discuss the details of the case.
If they are transferred
Transfers between facilities are common and often happen with little notice, sometimes across state lines. Search the locator again with the A-number — the record follows the person.
Tell their lawyer immediately, and before the move if there is any warning of it. A move to a facility in another circuit can change which court hears a bond request and which circuit’s law it follows — and on the bond question that can change the answer outright. Where a federal court challenge to the detention is filed matters too, which is why a lawyer may want to file one before a move rather than after. The main immigration case does not move automatically with the person.
What to do next
- Work through the first 24 hours if you have not already.
- Photograph every document ICE gave them, front and back.
- Find a lawyer through the national legal services directory. In most cases nobody is appointed for you in immigration court.