Sponsors
The bill improves detainee visibility, family notification, and oversight—helping immigrants, families, attorneys, and the public—but does so at the cost of privacy and safety risks for vulnerable individuals and added operational and fiscal burdens on agencies and taxpayers.
Immigrants, their families, and legal representatives will be able to locate detainees and learn about custody status changes much faster because custody events must be reported to the central Online Detainee Locator System within short timeframes (6–12 hours) and known family/legal contacts must be notified within 12 hours.
The public, oversight bodies, and local governments will gain more timely public data on transfers, releases, and in-custody deaths, improving transparency and accountability of DHS custody operations.
Known family members and legal representatives will receive quicker notifications of custody events, which can reduce detention-related stress and enable faster access to counsel, support services, or release coordination.
Immigrants (including trafficking victims, witnesses, and other vulnerable people) face heightened privacy and safety risks because publishing more detailed biographical and custodial information and rapid family notifications can expose sensitive information or endanger individuals if safeguards are inadequate.
Taxpayers and DHS/contractor budgets will likely incur increased administrative and IT costs to expand data fields, implement timely update and notification systems, and respond to audit findings.
Federal employees, contractors, and agency operations may face significant operational burdens and higher risk of errors because tight timelines (as short as 4 hours for some transfers and 6–12 hours for updates/notifications) make accurate, complete reporting difficult and could disrupt processing.
Based on analysis of 10 sections of legislative text.
Requires ICE and CBP to update detainee location/status in the ODLS quickly, notify known family or legal reps, and submit to annual DHS OIG audits.
Introduced March 4, 2026 by Ben Ray Luján · Last progress March 4, 2026
Requires U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to keep the online detainee locator system up to date and to provide specific detainee information quickly after custody events. It also requires DHS Office of Inspector General audits and asks agencies to try to notify known close family members or legal representatives within a short timeframe, with the law taking effect 30 days after enactment.