Groups that provide legal services to immigrants filed a lawsuit on Wednesday asking a federal court to halt a Trump administration policy that conceals the locations of tens of thousands of detainees who have final deportation orders.
The suit, filed in federal court in Boston, says the policy was adopted abruptly last month to speed up deportations. It argues the change makes it hard, and at times impossible, for immigration lawyers to find their clients, and it asks a judge to block what it calls an "unlawful and inhumane" shift.
Jacquelynne Bowman, executive director of Greater Boston Legal Services, one of the four plaintiffs, said: "No one should be denied a meaningful opportunity to defend their rights because the government has made it impossible for their lawyer to find them." She added that the "arbitrary new administrative change leaves hundreds of thousands of people at risk of potentially life-altering consequences without essential legal help."
The lawsuit targets a decision by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, first reported by The Associated Press, to remove the locations of people with final removal orders from its Online Detainee Locator System. Staff were also told not to disclose where those people are held. As of last month, the change affected more than 16,000 of the nearly 69,000 people in ICE custody.
ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the suit. The agencies have not publicly confirmed the change. They have said they are prioritizing people with final removal orders for deportation and are dealing with a "historic number of injunctions" from courts that block their efforts. They have also denied that they are disappearing detainees, noting that detainees can still make phone calls.
Lawyers and relatives have relied on the online locator since 2010 to follow detainees as they are transferred between facilities in ICE's large detention network. Roughly 1.4 million people in the United States are subject to final orders of removal, meaning an immigration judge ordered their deportation and the ruling was upheld on appeal or never appealed.
Those people still have ways to contest their detention and pending removal, including asking to reopen their cases, seeking relief from removal to third countries, and challenging violations of their rights. Federal judges have ruled thousands of times that detainees should be released or given bond hearings.
According to the lawsuit, since the policy took effect, lawyers have been unable to find clients and prospective clients and have spent "significantly more time" tracking down others. Calls to ICE, including to its Detention and Removal Information Line, reportedly "lead to long wait times on hold, sudden hang-ups, a general lack of information or no answer at all."
Some lawyers have tried to use an ICE program that schedules legal calls, but the suit says only a small share of detention centers take part. The organizations say the result has been delayed or missed legal filings and fewer cases accepted.
The plaintiffs argue the change violates the Administrative Procedure Act because it was adopted without explanation. They also say it violates the First Amendment, which protects lawyers' ability to advise people of their legal rights and to seek prospective clients.
