| In FOIA Case Against ICE Now
Compliance Measured By Pages Reviewed Not
Produced
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC
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SDNY COURTHOUSE,
April 29 – The US
Attorney's Office on April 14
cited Coronavirus to defend
ICE's delay on a FOIA request
about "ICE moves to revive
six-figure fines against
illegal immigrants / ICE has
issued fines over the past
year to about 230 illegal
immigrants who have defied
judges' deportation orders to
remain in the country, tapping
a tool that has been on the
books for decades." Inner City
Press which uses FOIA covered
it, here.
Now on
April 29, the AUSA shifted
arguments, to both a lack of
resources to process FOIA
requests and a desire to be
measured by the number of
pages processed or reviewed,
not actually processed. The
argument largely prevailed.
Inner City Press' April 29
coverage:
The AUSA
said that ICE says it'll
produce 500 page a month
because that's its capacity,
that to release 2000 pages it
would have to review more.
Judge Liman said,
I can assess compliance with
number of pages produced. How
do I assess if ICE is
processing a certain number?
AUSA: Sure
plaintiffs believe the issue
they'd inquiring into is
important; all do. He says he
is working on an NYT FOIA
request on school safety after
the Parkland shooting.
Judge Liman
ordered 1200 page a month -
pages to be "processed" or
reviewed. But how many will be
produced?
Judge Liman: I
would not be pleased if the
production of documents is
backloaded, so that the good
stuff comes at the end.
Understood?
AUSA:
Yes. We'll see.
Back on
April 14 for ICE and US
Attorney Geoffrey Berman, AUSA
Alexander Hogan told U.S.
District for the Southern
District of New York Judge
Lewis J. Liman that under
FOIA, "the search for
responsive records has provide
to be further complicated by
many employees working
remotely as a result of
COVID-19."
Judge Liman asked
for a response to argument
that FOIA is not "to benefit
private litigants." But there
are no discovery rights in
these ICE fine
proceedings.
AUSA Hogan
argued, The nature of FOIA is
that you don't get all these
documents all at once. I don't
understand where ICE is not
living up to its
responsibilities, unless this
is really about the documents
ICE gave to the Washington
Times. Perhaps it is. The case
is Austin Sanctuary Network et
al. v. ICE et al, 20-cv-1686
(Liman).
***
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