Council and RMIAN File FOIA Seeking Information about Detrimental Transfers of People in ICE Custody

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) commonly transfers people in detention from one facility to another in a different geographic area. These transfers often remove people away from loved ones and other support systems and can disrupt individuals’ removal proceedings by taking them to places where access to legal representation is virtually impossible. ICE regularly moves people multiple times before their eventual release.

In 2012, ICE published a policy that consolidated guidance on ICE transfers. The policy sought to establish protocols for making transfer decisions, systematize supervisory review of the determinations, and establish obligations for data keeping to ensure compliance. However, ICE has not published any updates to this policy in more than 13 years. ICE also has not made public any of the data proscribed by the policy. As such, the extent of this issue is unknown to the public.

To get more information about this issue, the Council teamed up with the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network (RMIAN) to pursue more information about ICE detention transfers. The request seeks records of:

• Agency updates in the implementation of the ICE transfers policy, including copies of the forms used by ICE during transfers;
• The data that field office directors were required to maintain under the policy; and
• Records from select field offices about transfers to better understand why ICE transferred people out of these places.

Detention transfers cause major disruptions to the lives of people in detention. Advocates also report that ICE has transferred individuals away from facilities where they have been able to secure legal representation. In some instances, ICE failed to notify attorneys that the agency moved their clients to different detention facilities in different parts of the country, hindering adequate attorney access for individuals navigating court proceedings. The request seeks to obtain more information about why these transfers occur and hold the agency accountable for following its own procedures.