How to Find Someone in ICE Custody in Texas

To find an adult in ICE custody, search the ICE Online Detainee Locator System at locator.ice.gov by A-Number or by name and date of birth. Below: a step-by-step walk-through, what an immigration detainer (Form I-247A) means on a Texas criminal case, whether a person can still bond out, and how the criminal case affects the immigration outcome. This page is family orientation, not legal advice, and L and L Law Group defends the Texas criminal case — not the immigration matter.

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How Do You Find Someone in ICE Custody in Texas?

When a family member is picked up and you are not sure where they are, the fastest tool is the federal government's own system. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operates the Online Detainee Locator System (ODLS) at locator.ice.gov. It lists adults who are currently in ICE custody, and it is free to search. There are two ways in, and one is far more reliable than the other.

Search by A-Number (most reliable)

Every person ICE tracks has an Alien Registration Number, or A-Number — the letter "A" followed by nine digits. If you know it, the locator search takes seconds and returns a single, unambiguous record. Enter the nine digits and the person's country of birth. The A-Number appears on almost any prior immigration paperwork: a work permit (EAD card), a green card, an immigration court notice, or the detainer document itself. If any of that paperwork is in the home, look for the "A#" before you do anything else.

Search by name and date of birth (biographic search)

If you do not have the A-Number, use the biographic search instead. It asks for first name, last name, country of birth, and exact date of birth. This search is more sensitive to small differences — a hyphenated surname, an accent, a country entered as "Mexico" versus a state name — so if the first attempt comes back empty, try reasonable spelling variations before you conclude the person is not there.

What to do when no result appears

A blank result is common and rarely means something is wrong. The usual explanations:

• Timing. New bookings and transfers between facilities can take 24 to 48 hours to show up in the public system. If the arrest was recent, wait and check again.
• Still in local custody. The person may be in a county jail on the criminal case and not yet transferred to ICE. Check the county jail roster (Collin, Dallas, Denton, or Tarrant) in parallel.
• Under 18. The ODLS does not list minors. Unaccompanied children fall under a different agency (the Office of Refugee Resettlement), and different contact steps apply.
• Data mismatch. A misspelled name or wrong country of birth will hide an otherwise-listed record. The A-Number search bypasses this problem.

If you have waited, checked the jail roster, and still find nothing, the next step is to contact the ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) field office that covers North Texas — the ERO Dallas Field Office. Have the person's full name, date of birth, country of birth, and A-Number ready when you call. General contact information for ICE field offices is published at ice.gov/contact/field-offices.

What Does an ICE Hold or Immigration Detainer (Form I-247A) Mean?

If a loved one is in a county jail and you hear that "ICE has a hold" on them, that hold is almost always an immigration detainer, filed on Form I-247A. Understanding what it is — and what it is not — removes a lot of unnecessary panic.

A detainer is a request from ICE to the jail. It asks the jail to keep the person in custody for up to 48 hours beyond the moment they would otherwise be released — for example, after a criminal case ends or after bond is posted — so that ICE has a window to come and take custody. That is all it is: a request for a short additional hold plus notice of the anticipated release time.

A detainer is not a criminal charge, it is not a conviction, and it is not a judicial arrest warrant signed by a judge. It does not add time to any criminal sentence, and it is not evidence of guilt in the criminal case. It is an administrative immigration document. The 48-hour clock also excludes weekends and holidays, which in practice can stretch the real-world wait somewhat longer than two calendar days.

What a detainer does signal is that ICE has flagged the person for possible immigration enforcement and intends to make a custody decision once the criminal side is resolved. That is precisely why the criminal case and the immigration exposure have to be handled with an eye on each other, which the sections below explain.

Detainer vs. Criminal Bond — Can You Still Bond Out?

This is the question families ask most, usually while deciding whether to spend money on a bond. The honest answer is: it depends, and it depends heavily on the county and the facility.

Here is the tension. Posting a criminal bond resolves the criminal reason the person is being held — it is the mechanism for release on the state charge. But if an immigration detainer is in place, the jail may keep the person for up to 48 hours (excluding weekends and holidays) so ICE can assume custody. In that situation, posting the criminal bond does not put your family member back on the street; it can instead move them from county custody into ICE custody. The bond money is spent, and the person is still detained — just in a different system.

Whether that happens is a matter of local practice. Some jails and some counties coordinate closely with ICE and will hold for the detainer; others handle release differently. Practices in Collin, Denton, Dallas, and Tarrant Counties are not identical, and they change over time. Because of that variation, two steps are worth taking before you post anything:

• Ask the specific jail what will happen at release if a detainer is on file — whether the person would be released or transferred to ICE.
• Talk to a criminal defense lawyer first. A defense attorney can read the situation, look at the bond conditions, and advise on timing so that money is not spent on a bond that will not produce the release you expect.

None of this means bond is pointless — in many cases it is exactly the right move. It means the decision should be made with the detainer in view, not in isolation. For a fuller explanation of how detainers interact with the criminal case, see our overview of ICE holds and immigration detainers.

Why Does the Criminal Case Drive the Immigration Outcome?

It can feel backwards, but for many families the single most important thing that can be done to protect a person's immigration situation happens in the criminal courtroom, not the immigration one. The reason is that immigration law attaches consequences to specific criminal outcomes. Whether a case ends in a dismissal, in one kind of plea versus another, or in a conviction can be the difference between a manageable immigration path and a much harder one. The charge matters, the final disposition matters, and sometimes the exact statute and sentence length matter.

The U.S. Supreme Court recognized how tightly these two systems are connected. In Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356 (2010), the Court held that the Sixth Amendment requires a criminal defense attorney to advise a noncitizen client whether a guilty plea carries a risk of deportation. As the Court put it, "counsel must inform her client whether his plea carries a risk of deportation." The Court also drew a practical line: when the immigration consequence of a plea is clear from the removal statute, counsel must give correct, specific advice; when the law is "not succinct and straightforward," counsel must at least advise that the charges "may carry a risk of adverse immigration consequences." In other words, the duty to think about immigration is built into competent criminal defense.

What that means for your family is concrete. A plea that looks like a good deal purely as a criminal matter — less jail, quick resolution — can carry immigration consequences that make it the wrong deal overall. A different resolution of the same charge, or a dismissal, may protect far more than a few weeks of jail time ever could. This is why the criminal defense strategy has to be built with the immigration stakes in mind from the very first setting, and why coordination between the criminal defense lawyer and an immigration attorney is so valuable. It is also a reason not to rush into any plea before those consequences are understood.

What Should Families Do First?

The first hours are stressful, and a short, practical checklist helps more than anything. Here is where to put your energy.

Gather documents and identifiers

Collect the person's full legal name, date of birth, country of birth, and A-Number if you can find it. Pull together any immigration paperwork already in the home — work permit, green card, prior court notices, anything with an "A#" on it. These are the keys that unlock both the detainee locator and any conversation with a lawyer or with ICE.

Locate the person

Use the ICE detainee locator for ICE custody and the county jail roster for local custody, as described above. Knowing exactly where someone is — and in which system — determines every next step.

Protect the case on the phone

Do not discuss the facts of the criminal case over jail phone lines. Calls from county jails and ICE facilities are recorded and monitored, and prosecutors can obtain and use them. Keep calls to logistics: who is where, what documents are needed, what the next court date is. Do not talk about how the alleged offense happened or who was involved. Save that conversation for a confidential, unrecorded meeting with the attorney. This one habit protects the case more than families realize.

Call a criminal defense lawyer promptly

The earliest decisions — whether and when to post bond, what happens at the first setting, whether to give any statement — shape everything that follows, and several of them cannot be undone. Getting counsel involved early, before those choices are made, is the most useful thing a family can do. Our overview of what happens after an arrest walks through how a criminal case moves from booking to resolution.

How Does a Criminal Defense Lawyer Help When There's a Detainer?

When there is an immigration detainer in the picture, a criminal defense lawyer's job does not change — but the way the case is steered does. At L and L Law Group, we defend the Texas criminal charge, and we do it with the immigration stakes kept firmly in view. Practically, that involves several things working together.

Reading the bond situation realistically. Rather than posting bond blindly, we look at whether release is actually achievable given the detainer and the county's practice, and we advise on timing so families do not spend money without the result they expect.

Building the criminal strategy around the disposition that matters. Because the final outcome of the criminal case is what immigration law reacts to, we focus on the resolutions that protect the person — pushing for dismissals where the evidence supports it, and, where a plea is on the table, weighing its immigration footprint rather than only its jail-time math.

Coordinating with an immigration attorney. We are candid about our lane: we handle the criminal case, not the removal case. When a family also needs immigration counsel, the two lawyers can share information and align strategy, so the criminal resolution and the immigration defense point in the same direction.

Keeping the family informed in plain language. That includes plain-English (and, through our Spanish-language site and bilingual intake, plain-Spanish) answers about what the charge means, what the realistic paths are, and what the next date is — without alarmism and without false promises.

The firm answers the phone 24 hours a day at (972) 370-5060, and the initial consultation is free and confidential. If someone you love is detained and also facing a criminal charge in Collin, Dallas, Denton, or Tarrant County, that call is the right first move on the criminal side.