Zimbabwe

Immigration attorneys and advocates across the country report that as of September 15, immigrants with final removal orders are no longer listed in ICE's online detainee locator, the database used to find people in federal custody. NBC4 independently verified several detainees with final orders missing from the system. In one case, an Ohio attorney said she could not locate her client, a Zimbabwean nurse with a longstanding withholding-of-removal order, for 32 hours after an "irregular" ICE check-in turned into a detention and transfer to a Louisiana facility. Attorneys say ICE officers have cited new internal orders not to disclose the location of detainees with final removal orders, though ICE has issued no formal public notice of the change.

The shift coincides with the Trump administration's push to deport people to third countries rather than their home nations, a workaround for withholding-of-removal protections. The Supreme Court recently allowed that third-country deportation policy to proceed while agreeing to hear arguments on its legality in December. Advocates say the database change makes it harder to file emergency legal challenges before removals occur.