• On May 1, 2025, the Council filed a FOIA request with ICE to investigate its implementation of the “Securing Our Borders” Executive Order and “Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion” Presidential Proclamation. The FOIA request seeks all memoranda, musters, guidance, and other similar records implementing these executive actions.
The FOIA request comes after President Trump took several sweeping executive actions on immigration within hours of taking office. In an executive order titled “Securing Our Borders,” he directed ICE to detain noncitizens “to the maximum extent authorized by law,” and to realign policies for paroling noncitizens out of immigration detention with this directive. And in a proclamation titled “Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion,” President Trump suspended the entry of noncitizens at the U.S.-Mexico border on the pretext that irregular migration across the border amounted to an “invasion.” He further ordered the Secretary of Homeland Security to “repel, repatriate, and remove” any noncitizen who crossed the border.
Executive actions like these hold heavy consequences for migrants at the border. The proclamation greatly restricts asylum protections and limits migrants’ ability to request humanitarian protection until the president deems the “invasion” to be ceased. Furthermore, the declaration of an “invasion” comes at a moment where migrant encounters have significantly decreased.
Under FOIA and a memo issued by the Department of Homeland Security’s Chief FOIA Officer, ICE should have proactively published the policies implementing these executive actions on its FOIA library.
However, ICE has failed to do so.
