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WHO WE'RE SUING (AND WHY)
- Council Sues To Get Records of ICE’s Treatment of Haitian Nationals at the Torrance Detention Facility
In the aftermath of the horrific scenes that surfaced last September showing Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers violently arresting Haitian migrants attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, thousands of Haitian nationals were taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Dozens were taken to the Torrance County Detention Facility, a detention center in a remote part of New Mexico notorious for its deplorable living conditions.
After partner organizations filed a complaint with oversight agencies within the Department of Homeland Security noting due process violations at this detention center, the Council filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to find out more about the agency’s treatment of Haitian migrants detained at Torrance. The FOIA request asked the agency for records and data related to people detained at Torrance, including information about whether the agency granted detained individuals access to legal representatives and how ICE officers decided to release individuals on parole. When ICE did not produce the requested records, the Council sued under FOIA to compel ICE to release the records.
The records should clarify what happened to Haitian nationals detained at Torrance and help advocates determine whether the agency discriminated against this vulnerable population.
Read more: Council Sues To Get Records of ICE’s Treatment of Haitian Nationals at the Torrance Detention Facility
NOTEWORTHY
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Agencies Struggle to Comply with Court Order in FOIA Class Action Suit
Agency defendants in Nightingale v. USCIS admitted to losing thousands of individual immigrant files or A-files in an update to the court in June. Under a December 2020 court order in the case, Defendants U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) regularly must describe how they are complying with the court’s order to timely respond to FOIA requests for individual immigration files or A-files. Defendants’ most recent report explained a major mishap that caused Defendants to fail to process approximately 10,000 FOIA requests for A-files. As the agency put it: “ICE [] discovered a large volume of misrouted A-File FOIA requests that had been improperly submitted to ICE rather than USCIS.”
In its report, Defendants explained that when a DHS component agency other than USCIS receives a FOIA request for an A-file, the agency is required “to ‘route’ the request to USCIS within ten business days.” ICE, however, failed to route the improperly submitted requests to USCIS, which resulted in the accumulation of 10,000 forgotten files. Further investigation uncovered additional A-file requests languishing at ICE. In total, 13,597 files were discovered and transferred to USCIS. Because of the lost files, Defendants conceded that USCIS was only able to timely adjudicate 60.25% of the A-file requests between March and June 2022. During a July 7 hearing, the judge voiced unhappiness with the agencies’ worsening processing times, stating that the agency appears to be going “backwards” in its compliance with the court order.
Read more: Agencies Compliance Report with Court Order
The American Immigration Council works to hold the government accountable on immigration issues. We harness freedom of information requests, litigation, and advocacy to expose wrongdoing and promote transparency within immigration agencies.
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