Greater Boston Legal Services et al. v. Mullin et al, Case No. 1:26-cv-14869
Summary
Four legal service organizations are suing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) over a policy that hides the location of detained people who have final orders of removal. Greater Boston Legal Services, Rian Immigrant Center, the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, and the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights bring the case on their own behalf and on behalf of their clients with final orders. They ask the court to declare the policy unlawful, pause it while the case moves forward, set it aside, and order ICE to make the policy public.
Since 2010, families and lawyers have used ICE’s Online Detainee Locator System, a public website, to find out where a person in ICE custody is detained. In September 2026, ICE abruptly stopped listing people with final orders of removal, without public notice or explanation. Public reporting and the complaint alleges that officers were also told not to give out these locations over the phone.
People with final orders still have legal options. They can ask to reopen their case, challenge their detention in federal court, advocate for critical medical care, or get help when they are mistreated in detention; all of that depends on a lawyer being able to reach them. Since the policy change, staff at the plaintiff organizations have spent hours calling detention centers and relatives to track down clients, and some people who asked for help have never been found.
The plaintiffs argue that the policy violates the Administrative Procedure Act and the First Amendment rights of lawyers and the people they represent to communicate with each other. Two of the organizations also argue that ICE violated the Freedom of Information Act by failing to publish the policy.
Co-counsel:
ACLU Foundation of Massachusetts, National Immigration Law Center, ACLU Foundation, and Annelise Araujo Law