In this segment, associate attorney Brianna Walling explains practical steps for families trying to locate a loved one detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). She outlines the primary method of using the online ICE detainee locator, detailing the required data—either an alien registration (A‑) number with country of birth, or alternatively the full name, country of birth, and date of birth. Walling cautions that the online system is not consistently updated, so a lack of results does not confirm the person is not detained. She then advises the fallback approach of contacting the nearest ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) field office via the ice.gov/contact/field-offices directory, noting that families may prefer an attorney to make the inquiry due to fear of direct contact, but also warning that ICE often does not respond to such inquiries. The overall tone is instructional and conversational, with a realistic, cautious sentiment about the limitations of the tools and ICE responsiveness.
Chapters
Hello, my name is Brianna Walling and I'm one of the associate attorneys at Rivas Associates. The second question is, my family member is detained, how can I locate them? So basically there's an online system. If you literally Google online detainee locator, it pulls up this website which is a really helpful tool to be able to find somebody if they are detained by ICE. A couple of pieces of information that you need in order to be able to use this tool are an individual's alien registration number and in their country of birth. So with those two things alone, you should be able to find, uh, the detention center where somebody is located. Or if you don't have an alien registration number, you can also try putting in their name, full name, country of birth, date of birth. And with that information as well, you can also attempt to find them that way. However, a couple of notes: it's not being updated regularly. And probably what other folks are seeing as well is that this website is, is really helpful tool, but it is just not not consistently being updated right now. If your family member was arrested by ICE and you are trying to use this website to find them and it's not pulling up any information, saying there's no information about this case, that does not necessarily mean that they weren't detained. It just means that maybe they are not in the system yet. If you've tried all of that, it still doesn't work, the old-school way of being able to find your, your family member was contacting the ICE local field office directly. And I understand there may be some fear surrounding contacting ICE You can have your attorney try and do it if that's better. But really, this was how people used to have to always find their loved one before this online system was in place. If you go to ice.gov/contact/field-offices, it lists all of the local ERO field offices in the United States. ERO just stands for Enforcement and Removal Operations field office. With this website, you can find the email and phone number of the field office that is closest to you. Just be aware that that is another option, but it's unlikely that ICE will honestly get back to you.
