‘He Disappeared Without a Word’: Inside ICE’s Secretive Detention Machine

June 20, 2025

By Brian Hews

Imagine your father disappears on his way to work — and no one tells you where he is. That’s not a dystopian novel. That’s ICE policy.

In the United States, a country that claims to uphold due process and the rule of law, there exists a parallel system in which entire families are left in limbo, searching for loved ones who vanish into a government detention network with no warning, no explanation, and no accountability.

That system is run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Unlike in the criminal justice system — where arrestees are booked, given a phone call, and their whereabouts are entered into a searchable database — immigration detainees can be arrested by ICE and transferred hundreds of miles away without notifying a single person. No lawyer. No spouse. No parent. No one.

A Legal Black Hole

The legal framework allowing this secrecy hinges on a dangerous technicality: immigration detention is considered civil, not criminal. That classification gives ICE enormous leeway to detain individuals indefinitely, often without judicial oversight, and without the constitutional protections guaranteed to criminal defendants.

There is no statute requiring ICE to notify families after a detention. There is no law mandating detainees be given a phone call. And while ICE does provide an “online detainee locator,” it’s frequently outdated, nonfunctional for recent arrests, and completely useless if a family doesn’t know a person’s exact name or country of birth.

Families Left in the Dark

The consequences of this opacity are devastating.

Parents vanish during traffic stops and workplace raids. Children come home to empty houses. Lawyers scramble to find clients who’ve been transferred from California to Louisiana or Texas overnight. Often, by the time a family locates a loved one, they’ve already been deported — sometimes to countries where they face persecution or death.

“The government treats these people like case numbers, not human beings,” said Eunice Cho, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project. “ICE’s refusal to notify families or legal counsel is a deliberate tactic to chill the right to legal representation.”

The Courts Are Taking Notice

Several pending federal court cases are challenging ICE’s practices:

Doe v. ICE (D.D.C.): Filed by a coalition of immigrants’ rights groups, this case alleges ICE systematically violates detainees’ Fifth Amendment due process rights by failing to notify families or lawyers, and by transferring individuals without legal recourse.

Padilla v. ICE (9th Circuit): Brought by asylum seekers who were detained in Washington without access to legal counsel or timely bond hearings. While initially successful, the case is now under appeal after a district court ruling was reversed.

ACLU v. DHS (E.D.N.Y.): Challenges ICE’s mass workplace raids and subsequent failure to provide post-detention communication, arguing it amounts to a constructive denial of due process.

In all of these cases, the plaintiffs argue that ICE’s practices are not just unconstitutional — they are inhumane.

Not Just Policy — A Pattern

This is not an occasional oversight. It’s a deliberate structure.

Under the Trump administration, ICE’s secretive operations expanded under a veil of national security rhetoric. But the machinery remains active under Biden, with minimal reforms. The American public may have turned the page, but for immigrant communities, the terror of a knock at the door at 5 a.m. is still very real.

“ICE is the only law enforcement agency in the country that can disappear a person without notifying anyone,” said Trina Realmuto, executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance. “That’s not just unconstitutional — it’s un-American.”

The Bottom Line

Due process is not a privilege for citizens; it is a constitutional right for all persons in the United States. Yet ICE’s current system allows for a person to be picked up, held in detention for weeks or months, transferred to secret facilities, and even deported — all without ever speaking to their child, their spouse, or their attorney.

That’s not justice. It’s state-sponsored erasure.

Contact Brian Hews at [email protected] or follow @cerritosnews.bsky.social