Since September 15, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has quietly removed thousands of detainees from its public online detainee locator — the one tool families and lawyers use to find out where a loved one is being held. The people affected all share one thing: a final order of removal from an immigration court. Nearly 16,000 people booked into ICE detention in July alone had final removal orders, according to data obtained by the Deportation Data Project at U.C. Berkeley and UCLA.

ICE never announced this change. Lawyers only discovered it when their clients vanished from the system, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association had to warn its own members. Detainees are frequently transferred between facilities before deportation, so losing the locator means families can go days or weeks not knowing if someone has been moved, or deported entirely.

"Families are freaking out because they think the person has been deported and they don't know where the person might be," said Greg Chen, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

People with final removal orders still have legal options — including asking a judge to reopen their case or release them on constitutional grounds. None of that is possible if their own attorney cannot find them. A handful of facilities are exempt only because courts have already ordered ICE to keep listing detainees there — proof this is a policy choice, not a technical necessity.

Every family deserves to know where their loved one is. Sign the petition to demand ICE restore the public detainee locator for all detainees, before more families lose contact with someone they love.