What to Do if a Family Member Is Detained by ICE in Massachusetts
If a family member has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Massachusetts, there are steps you can take right now. Your immediate priorities are locating them, telling them not to sign any documents, and contacting an experienced immigration attorney as quickly as possible.
The detention process moves fast. A person taken into custody in the Boston area may initially be held at the ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) field office in Burlington before being transferred to the Plymouth County Correctional Facility in Plymouth, the only facility in Massachusetts that houses ICE detainees under a federal contract. ICE also transfers people to facilities in New Hampshire or to states as far away as Texas and Louisiana, sometimes within days of the initial arrest. These transfers can separate your family member from legal counsel and from the support they need.
A detention is not a deportation order. With prompt legal action, it may be possible to secure a bond hearing, challenge the basis of the detention, and begin building a case for your family member’s right to remain in the United States.
If you are unsure where your relative is being held or have been told a transfer may happen soon, call Brooks Law Firm now at (617) 245-8090. We offer free consultations for families facing ICE detention.
Three Things to Do Right Now
Find out where your family member is being held. Use the ICE Online Detainee Locator System first, but be prepared to call the detention facility directly. A person arrested in the Boston area may be at the ICE Burlington field office before appearing in the locator system, which can take several hours to update after an arrest.
Tell them not to sign anything without a lawyer reviewing it. ICE officers may pressure a detainee to sign paperwork that waives their right to appear before an immigration judge. Once signed, these documents are extremely difficult to undo.
Understand that bond eligibility depends on the circumstances. A recent First Circuit ruling confirmed that people who entered without inspection and are detained in New England are entitled to bond hearings, but eligibility still depends on how your family member entered the country and their criminal history. An attorney can evaluate your family member’s specific situation.
Step 1: Find Your Family Member
The federal government operates a public search tool for locating ICE detainees, but it does not always show results immediately after an arrest.
Start With the ICE Online Detainee Locator
The ICE Online Detainee Locator System (ODLS) is a free, public database that allows you to search for anyone over 18 who is currently in ICE custody. You can search using one of two methods. The first is the person’s Alien Registration Number (A-Number), a unique number that appears on immigration court documents. If you have the A-Number and the person’s country of birth, this is the most reliable way to search. The second option is a biographical search using their full legal name, date of birth, and country of birth. The system requires an exact match to whatever information was entered at the time of processing, so try variations in spelling if your first attempt does not return results.
There is often a delay between an arrest and the person appearing in the ODLS. A person arrested in the Boston area may first be processed at the ICE ERO field office in Burlington (1000 District Avenue, Burlington, MA 01803; phone (781) 359-7500) before being moved to Plymouth County. During that initial period, the person may not yet appear in the online system. Do not assume the worst if they are not listed right away, but do not stop checking.
Call the Detention Facility Directly
If the ODLS does not show results, begin calling detention centers. Keep a notebook and log every call: who you spoke to, what they said, and the time.
In Massachusetts, the primary facility is the Plymouth County Correctional Facility, located at 26 Long Pond Road in Plymouth. It is a county jail that contracts with the federal government to house ICE detainees. The facility’s main number is (508) 830-6200.
ICE frequently transfers people to other New England facilities, including the Strafford County Department of Corrections in New Hampshire. More concerning is the transfer pipeline to southern states like Texas and Louisiana, where access to Massachusetts-based legal help becomes far more difficult. An attorney may be able to take steps to halt a transfer, but only if they are retained quickly.
Step 2: Tell Your Family Member Not to Sign Anything
Once you make contact, deliver one clear, urgent message: do not sign any paperwork without a lawyer reviewing it first.
ICE officers may ask a detainee to sign a document for voluntary departure. Voluntary departure allows a person to leave the United States on their own terms, without a formal removal order on their record. That distinction matters because a removal order carries additional reentry bars and consequences. However, voluntary departure is not consequence-free. The three-year and ten-year bars for unlawful presence still apply when the person departs. If the person misses the departure deadline, federal law imposes a civil penalty and a ten-year bar on several forms of relief, including cancellation of removal, adjustment of status, and future voluntary departure.
More immediately, agreeing to voluntary departure at the point of arrest, before speaking with an attorney, means giving up the right to a hearing before an immigration judge and to any form of relief the person might be eligible for. The person could be removed from the country before a legal challenge can even be filed.
Regardless of how the paperwork is labeled, the principle is the same: signing waives critical rights, and reversing it after the fact is extremely difficult. An attorney needs to evaluate whether voluntary departure is genuinely in the person’s interest before that decision is made.
The Massachusetts Attorney General’s office has issued guidance confirming that people arrested or detained by ICE have the right to read and understand any document before signing it. Refusing to sign is not obstruction. It is the exercise of a legal right.
Step 3: Not Everyone Is Eligible for a Bond Hearing
Once your family member is located, the next question is whether they are eligible for release on bond. This area of law has changed significantly since 2025, and the answer depends in part on how your family member entered the United States.
Federal Law Creates Different Categories of Detention
Under 8 CFR Part 236, which implements Section 236(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), people who were inspected and admitted to the United States, or who have an existing lawful immigration status, are generally eligible for a bond hearing before an immigration judge. At that hearing, the judge decides whether to release the person on bond while their case in removal proceedings (the formal process where the government seeks to deport someone) moves forward.
Under INA Section 236(c), Congress requires that people with certain types of criminal convictions be detained without a bond hearing. This has traditionally covered convictions for aggravated felonies, certain crimes involving moral turpitude, and drug offenses. The Laken Riley Act, signed into law on January 29, 2025, expanded mandatory detention further. It now applies to people who are arrested for or charged with theft-related offenses, burglary, shoplifting, assaulting a law enforcement officer, or any crime resulting in death or serious bodily injury. A conviction is not required. Even a charge that is later dismissed may be used by ICE as a basis for holding someone without bond.
Recent Decisions Changed the Bond Landscape, but New England Detainees Won
In May and September 2025, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), the federal body that sets binding precedent for immigration courts, issued two decisions that narrowed bond eligibility. In Matter of Q. Li (May 2025) and Matter of Yajure-Hurtado (September 2025), the BIA held that a person who entered the United States without being inspected and admitted at a port of entry is an “applicant for admission” under INA Section 235(b). Under this interpretation, immigration judges would not have the authority to hold bond hearings for these individuals, regardless of how long they have lived in the country.
Federal courts pushed back. Seven circuit courts of appeals have now rejected the BIA’s position and ruled that people detained in the interior of the country are still eligible for bond hearings. Only the Fifth and Eighth Circuits have upheld the government’s mandatory detention approach, and two circuits have cases still pending.
In Massachusetts, the First Circuit Court of Appeals resolved this question on August 13, 2026. In Guerrero Orellana v. Moniz, a class action covering thousands of detained people across New England, the First Circuit affirmed the district court’s December 2025 ruling and held that the government’s policy of denying bond hearings to people who entered without inspection is unlawful. This means that in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, and New Hampshire, people detained by ICE who entered without inspection are entitled to request a bond hearing before an immigration judge.
Because the government may seek Supreme Court review and the law continues to develop nationally, an immigration attorney can evaluate your family member’s specific circumstances and explain what the current legal landscape means for their case.
Mandatory Detention Can Still Be Challenged
Even when ICE classifies a detention as mandatory, an experienced attorney does not simply accept it. The attorney must obtain the person’s complete immigration and criminal history and analyze whether the specific conviction or charge actually fits the federal definition that triggers mandatory detention.
This is a legal analysis known as the categorical approach, where the elements of a state criminal charge are compared to the federal immigration standard. A Massachusetts conviction may carry one label under state law but fail to meet the federal definition. Successfully making this argument can mean the difference between indefinite detention and eligibility for a bond hearing.
Step 4: How to Get Your Family Member Released on Bond
For those who are eligible, the immediate goal is release through a bond hearing before an immigration judge. An immigration bond is money paid to the government as a guarantee that the person will attend all future court hearings.
The Government Must Prove Your Family Member Should Stay Detained
After an arrest, an ICE officer makes an initial custody determination. You do not have to accept that determination. Your attorney can file a request for a bond redetermination hearing (a hearing where an immigration judge reviews whether to release someone on bond) with the immigration court, which in the Boston area is the Boston Immigration Court at the John F. Kennedy Federal Building.
At the hearing, the judge considers two questions: whether the person is a danger to the community, and whether the person is a flight risk. In Massachusetts, which falls within the First Circuit, the government carries the burden on both questions. Under the First Circuit’s 2021 decision in Hernandez-Lara v. Lyons, the government must prove dangerousness by clear and convincing evidence, and flight risk by a preponderance of the evidence. This is a meaningful protection compared to other parts of the country where the burden falls on the detainee.
To counter a claim of dangerousness, the attorney presents evidence of good moral character, letters of support from family and community members, and proof of rehabilitation if past convictions exist. To counter a claim of flight risk, the attorney demonstrates deep ties to the community: stable employment, a fixed address, the presence of U.S. citizen children enrolled in local schools, long-term residence in the area, and any pending applications for immigration relief.
Judges handle crowded dockets, and an incomplete or disorganized bond presentation will not succeed. A comprehensive, well-documented bond package is essential.
Bond Must Be Paid in Full Before Release
Immigration bonds must be paid in full before the person is released. Unlike in state criminal court, there is no option to pay a percentage through a bail bondsman. The statutory minimum bond under INA Section 236(a) is $1,500, and bond amounts vary depending on the circumstances. The bond is posted at an ICE ERO office. An attorney familiar with the local courts can help you understand what amount to expect and how to arrange payment.
How Massachusetts Law Protects Your Family
Massachusetts Police Cannot Hold You for ICE
A 2017 decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Lunn v. Commonwealth, established an important protection that remains in effect. The court held that state and local law enforcement officers in Massachusetts do not have the authority to hold a person in custody based solely on a civil immigration detainer issued by ICE.
In practice, this means that if your family member is being released from a local jail after posting bail or completing a sentence, the jail cannot legally extend the detention just to give ICE time to arrive. ICE agents may still be present near the facility, but local officers cannot act as an extension of federal immigration enforcement by holding someone past their release time.
Out-of-State Transfers Are the Greatest Risk
The most significant threat to any ICE detainee in Massachusetts is being transferred out of state. Because ICE has limited detention capacity here, it frequently moves people hundreds or thousands of miles away. A transfer can sever the relationship with a Massachusetts-based attorney, cut off family contact, and lead to worse outcomes in the case.
Keeping the case in the Boston area is an early priority. Filing an emergency habeas corpus petition (a request asking a federal court to review whether someone is being lawfully detained) in federal district court is one tool to challenge unlawful detention or attempt to block a pending transfer. These petitions are filed in the federal court for the district where the person is currently detained.
What Comes After Release: Building the Long-Term Defense
Securing release on bond is the first major step, but the removal case must still be fought. Several forms of relief may be available depending on your family member’s circumstances.
Cancellation of removal may be an option for people who have been physically present in the United States for at least ten years continuously, have good moral character, and can demonstrate that their removal would cause exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to a qualifying U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident spouse, parent, or child. This is a demanding legal standard, and only an attorney can evaluate whether your family member’s situation may meet it.
Asylum may be available if your family member fears persecution or torture upon return to their home country based on a protected ground such as race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.
Post-conviction relief may apply when the immigration case is based on a Massachusetts criminal conviction. Under the Supreme Court’s decision in Padilla v. Kentucky, criminal defense attorneys have a constitutional obligation to advise noncitizen clients about the immigration consequences of a guilty plea. If the prior attorney failed to do so, it may be possible to return to state court, file a Motion for New Trial (a request to reopen a criminal case based on a legal error), vacate the conviction, and remove the basis for detention and removal.
Each of these paths involves strict eligibility requirements, deadlines, and evidentiary standards. An attorney who understands both Massachusetts criminal law and federal immigration law is essential.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I visit my family member at Plymouth County Correctional Facility?
Yes. All visitors must present a valid government-issued ID and be on the detainee’s approved visitation list. Visits are non-contact, and visitation hours are organized by the first letter of the detainee’s last name. Call the facility at (508) 830-6200 before traveling to confirm the current schedule and any restrictions.
What happens to my relative’s car or apartment while they are detained?
ICE does not secure a detainee’s personal property. If their car was impounded or their belongings are in an apartment, you will need to manage these affairs. You may need to obtain a limited power of attorney from your detained family member to access bank accounts, deal with a landlord, or retrieve a vehicle from an impound lot.
My relative has a green card. Can ICE still detain them?
Yes. Lawful permanent residents (green card holders) can be placed in removal proceedings and detained if they are convicted of certain offenses that federal immigration law classifies as deportable, such as aggravated felonies or crimes involving moral turpitude. Having a green card does not prevent detention when these grounds apply.
ICE came to my house looking for someone else but took my relative. Is that legal?
This is known as a collateral arrest. If ICE agents entered your home without your consent or without a judicial warrant (a warrant signed by a judge, not an administrative warrant signed by an ICE officer), the legality of the entry and the arrest may be challengeable. An attorney can evaluate the specific circumstances.
Does everyone detained by ICE get a bond hearing?
No. Eligibility depends on how your family member entered the United States and their criminal history. People with certain criminal convictions or charges face mandatory detention under federal law. For people who entered without inspection, the First Circuit ruled on August 13, 2026 that they are entitled to bond hearings in New England, but the government may seek Supreme Court review. An attorney can determine whether your family member qualifies and explain what options exist.
Reach out to Brooks Law Firm today to schedule a free consultation, and we will give you an honest assessment of your family member’s situation. Call (617) 245-8090.
