ICE detainer

An ICE detainer is a notice that Immigration and Customs Enforcement sends to a local jail or prison, asking it to notify ICE before releasing a person and to continue holding him or her for up to 48 hours, excluding weekends and holidays, so that ICE can take custody for possible removal. It is usually issued when ICE has reason to believe a person is deportable.

Detainers are requests, not orders: federal courts have held that local authorities are not required to comply, and that holding someone solely on a detainer without a judicial warrant can violate the Fourth Amendment, as in Miranda-Olivares v. Clackamas County (2014). This led many jurisdictions to decline them unless accompanied by a judicial warrant, a policy at the heart of sanctuary jurisdiction debates. ICE has revised the form to require probable cause.

Supporters of enforcement say that detainers allow ICE to take custody of people with criminal charges in a safe setting, the jail, rather than searching for them in neighborhoods. Critics say that they can be issued on weak information, have been issued against U.S. citizens in error and raise constitutional concerns. Some states require compliance with detainers by law, while others prohibit it. A related program is 287(g) agreement.