Press Release: Immigrant rights coalition urges UN to intervene after ICE conceals location of thousands of detained immigrants
September 30, 2026
Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center: “Earlier today, a group of over 30 organizations petitioned the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) to intervene after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) removed thousands of detained immigrants with final orders from its Online Detainee Locator System (ODLS) on September 15, limiting their access to legal counsel, the court system, and due process.
ODLS is an online system used to track the locations of individuals in ICE custody. Originally created in 2010, it has become an especially crucial tool for attorneys, families, and community members amid the Trump administration’s extraordinary efforts to arrest, detain, and deport noncitizens – often without notice or due process, and pursuant to third-country agreements.
Detained immigrants are regularly transferred among hundreds of detention sites nationwide. Without ODLS, family members have no way to locate their detained loved ones, and attorneys cannot pursue legal avenues of relief for their clients, including motions to reopen, appeals, habeas petitions, or stays of deportation….
The full list of signatories includes Abolitionist Law Center, Human Rights Program; Acacia Center for Justice; ACLU of Louisiana; American Gateways; Americans for Immigrant Justice; Amnesty International; CAIR-Chicago (The Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations); Cameroon Advocacy Network; Center for Constitutional Rights; Chicago United Families Coalition; Estrella del Paso; Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project; Haitian Bridge Alliance; Human Rights First; Immigrant Children Advocates’ Relief Effort (ICARE); Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef); Immigrant Legal Resource Center; Law Offices of Stephen C. Zollman; Lawyers for Good Government; LSN Legal LLC; Mountain State Justice; New Jersey Consortium for Immigrant Children; Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York; Public Counsel; RAICES; Refugees International; Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center; Sur Legal Collaborative; The Immigration Project Inc.; VECINA; Witness at the Border; and Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights.”