A lawsuit brought by The Marshall Project contends that ICE should release the names of immigrant detainees, arguing that you cannot hold a government to account if it will not reveal who it is holding.
The crackdown on immigration pursued by President Donald Trump began in January 2025, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reports that over 1.1 million individuals have been apprehended by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) combined. However, the vast majority of arrestees’ identities remain withheld from the public. This lack of transparency undermines the public’s ability to scrutinize and hold the government accountable.
Although ICE provides some information about detainees, the agency’s refusal to disclose the names, birth dates, and locations of those in custody breaches the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), according to a federal lawsuit filed by The Marshall Project on Tuesday. In denying FOIA requests for these particulars, ICE maintains that the “privacy interests of the individuals in the records…requested outweigh any minimal public interest disclosure of the information,” and argues that releasing such data could “increase the risk of misuse, unwanted contact, harassment, stigma, or other privacy harms,” as stated in the complaint.
A revealing stance given DHS’s own “worst of the worst” website—which reveals all sorts of information, including names and photos, while touting the detention of certain immigration detainees with criminal records.
It is true that publicly exposing someone’s arrest, especially a criminal one, can tarnish their reputation. Yet this is a trade-off necessary to sustain a functioning democracy. The notion of opposing anonymized arrests traces back to the Magna Carta. This liberty-minded stance was adopted early in America’s founding. In Federalist No. 84, Alexander Hamilton condemned the “practice of arbitrary imprisonments” as “the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.” He also cited Sir William Blackstone, an English jurist who greatly influenced the Founding, noting: “The confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government.”
Throughout much of American history, law enforcement agencies have disclosed the identities of those arrested through police blotters and other channels in the name of transparency and accountability. Today, 27 states have codified this practice, according to an amicus brief filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in a separate case involving ICE’s refusal to release the names of people arrested during a 10-day immigration enforcement operation in Chicago. Even when statutes do not explicitly identify arrest logs as public records, courts have consistently held that they are, the ACLU argues. Indeed, the Supreme Court has already ruled that the constitutional right to privacy does not extend to the publication of official acts, such as arrests.
“We are seeking transparency and access to information that have persisted within the criminal justice system for centuries,” said The Marshall Project’s editor in chief, Jennifer Peter. Concealing detainees’ names “makes it far more difficult for their loved ones and attorneys to assist them—and for organizations like The Marshall Project to illuminate what is truly happening inside immigration facilities,” Peter added.
The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has sparked ongoing debate since its inception. As the 2026 midterm elections approach, a recent New York Times poll found that 50 percent of Americans trust the Democratic Party to handle immigration better, compared with 46 percent who trust Republicans more.
Critics of Trump’s immigration policy have repeatedly highlighted concerns about the use of force, wrongful arrests, detentions, and deportations—including cases involving U.S. citizens—and the mistreatment of detainees. Proponents of limited government and fiscal accountability have also pointed to the opaque—and often costly—expansion of federal agencies, citing more than $200 billion in funding for FY 2027 and a doubling of both CBP and ICE staffing, reaching nearly 44,000 agents combined, all justified as immigration enforcement.
Since the founding era, Americans have rightly viewed government overreach with suspicion. In the current era of a tough stance on immigration, that skepticism remains warranted, and accountability is more essential than ever.
