Online Detainee Locator System

The first place you can check is the online ICE Detainee Locator at https://locator.ice.gov/odls. You will need the person’s full name, country of citizenship, and date of birth. You can also search by “Alien Number” or “A Number” which is the nine digit number assigned by to noncitizens by Immigration. You do not need the A Number to search using the ICE Detainee Locator Website though, so long as you can provide the individual’s first and last name, country of citizenship, and date of birth. If you don’t get any results when searching their name then you should also search their A Number if you have it because the system requires exact matches for spelling and sometimes names can be spelled wrong in the system. The ICE Detainee Locator Website explains:

When searching by name, a detainee’s first and last names are required and must be an exact match (e.g., John Doe will not find Jon Doe or John Doe-Smith). When inputting a hyphenated last name into the Online Detainee Locator System, please include hyphen in order for the locator to find the individual (e.g., Doe-Smith). You are also required to select the detainee’s Country of Birth.

ICE ONLINE DETAINEE LOCATOR SYSTEM

0 RESULTS FOUND

If you get the response, “0 Results Found” you should try alternate spellings of their name. If that doesn’t work they may still be in immigration custody but not in the system yet. Often times people who are in custody still won’t show up on the online detainee locator website if they were recently detained by immigration officials. They say it takes 48 hours for the system to update with their information after being taken into ICE custody.

Keep in mind that the Online Detainee Locator System cannot search for records of persons under the age of 18.

If you know the person you are looking for is in immigration custody but they aren’t in the system yet then you will have to call the local ICE field office to get any additional information.

A list of the ERO (ICE) Field Offices and their main phone numbers can be found here: https://www.ice.gov/contact/ero