Case Detail
| Case Title | EMUWA et al v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| District | District of Columbia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | Washington, DC | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Number | 1:2020cv01756 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Filed | 2020-06-29 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Closed | 2021-06-03 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Judge | Judge Trevor N. McFadden | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | AMARA EMUWA | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | MICHAUX LUKUSA | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | MOHAMMED ALQARAGHULI | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | FNU ALATANHUA | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | LOUISE TRAUMA CENTER LLC | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Description | Amara Emuwa, Michaux Lukusa, Mohammed Alqaraghuli, Fnu Alatanhua, and the Louise Trauma Center submitted FOIA requests to the Department of Homeland Security for records concerning their asylum assessment reports. The agency acknowledged receipt of their requests but refused to provide the assessment recommendation for the asylum interviews. Emuwa and the others then filed a class action practice or policy claim suit. Complaint issues: Litigation - Attorney's fees | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Appeal | D.C. Circuit 21-5131 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Appeal | D.C. Circuit 22-5153 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Documents | Docket Complaint Complaint attachment 1 Complaint attachment 2 Complaint attachment 3 Complaint attachment 4 Complaint attachment 5 Complaint attachment 6 Complaint attachment 7 Complaint attachment 8 Complaint attachment 9 Complaint attachment 10 Complaint attachment 11 Opinion/Order [23] FOIA Project Annotation: Judge Trevor McFadden has reaffirmed that Assessments to Refer, which contain recommendations of asylum officers after their interviews with asylum seekers, are largely protected by the deliberative process privilege and that only those portions of the report consisting of factual recitations of the case are non-privileged and disclosable under FOIA. Further, McFadden concluded that Louise Trauma Center, the organization representing four individual plaintiffs, had not shown that it had standing to bring a pattern or practice claim against the agency for its policy of refusing to disclose the analytical portions of the reports. Louise Trauma Center brought suit against the Department of Homeland Security for refusing to disclose the analytical portions of assessments of four individuals seeking asylum �" Amara Emuwa, Michaux Lukusa, Mohammed AlQaraghuli, and FNU Alatanhua. In response to their requests, DHS disclosed hundreds of pages of records in full, released some in part but withheld others in full. Emuwa, Lukusa, and Alatanhua all filed administrative appeals and DHS disclosed more records as a result. The suit challenged whether DHS's Exemption 5 withholding were proper, whether DHS sufficiently complied with FOIA's segregability requirement and whether the plaintiffs had provided evidence to support its policy-or-practice and inadequate training claims. Louise Trauma Center argued that Exemption 5 did not protect the assessment reports. But McFadden noted that "the deliberative process privilege applies to the Assessments. In fact, the D.C. Circuit has already answered this question. In Abtew v. Dept of Homeland Security, 808 F. 3d 895 (D.C. Cir. 2015), the Circuit held that Abtew's 'Assessment to Refer' was predecisional and deliberative and therefore covered by the privilege." McFadden indicated that "the Circuit reasoned that the assessment was predecisional because 'it was merely a recommendation to a supervisor,' as 'the supervisor, not the official writing the Assessment, made the final decision.' It was also deliberative because 'it was written as part of the process by which the supervisor came to that final decision. The document thus 'has no operative effect' on its own." McFadden pointed out that "Abtew controls here. The Government's declaration states that Assessments to Refer 'are prepared for and provided to the asylum officer's supervisor for review and approval.'" He observed that "the analysis portion of the Assessments are predecisional. . .[T]he Assessments contain the asylum officer's impression of eligibility after an interview, which he then passes along to a supervisor for review and a final decision. . . The Assessments are also deliberative, as 'they were prepared to help the agency formulate its position." McFadden also found the Supreme Court's recent decision in U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service v. Sierra Club, 141 S. Ct. 777 (2021), in which the Court found that draft biological opinions prepared by FWS under the Endangered Species Act, although final in terms of that agency's statutory role, were not final for purposes of the deliberative process privilege because they still could be rejected or modified by the EPA, supported his conclusion here. He noted that "the Court held that the privilege applied to the drafts because, among other things, they were 'opinions that were subject to change.' It also explained that 'a decision's real operative effect' �" meaning 'the legal, not practical consequences that flow from an agency's action' �" is 'an indication of finality.'" He observed: "So too here. The Assessments were 'opinions subject to change,' as the asylum officer's supervisor reviews the Assessment and chooses whether to accept its recommendations. If an asylum officer recommends referral, the supervisor could approve it and the agency could issue a "Referral Notice' �" which may lead to legal consequences when the applicant appears before an immigration judge for removal proceedings �" but the supervisor could also disagree." Louise Trauma Center argued that the Assessments as a practical matter constituted the final decision of the agency and the supervisor's approval was just a pro forma matter. To support its claim, Louise Trauma Center relied on conversations its attorney had with two former asylum officer's seven years previously. McFadden rejected those claims as hearsay, noting that "this Court, like others, has not allowed government defendants to rely on such evidence because of hearsay concerns, and it will not allow Plaintiffs here to do so either. Nor are allegations from unnamed former government employees enough to undermine the Government's admissible evidence supporting summary judgment." Likewise, McFadden rejected Louise Trauma Center's claim that the agency's FOIA Officer did not have personal knowledge of the decisions made by asylum officers. He pointed out that the fact that the FOIA Officer had sufficient personal knowledge of how FOIA requests were processed by her agency was sufficient to meet the personal knowledge standard in Rule 56. Louise Trauma Center also relied on Evans v. Bureau of Prisons, 951 F. 3d 578 (D.C. Cir. 2020), to support its lack of personal knowledge claim. But McFadden explained that "it was lack of specificity �" not personal knowledge �" that doomed the affidavit in Evans." He pointed out that "the lesson of Evans is that 'an agency claiming a FOIA exemption may carry its burden by the production of affidavits,' but 'such affidavits must show, with reasonable specificity, why the documents fall within the exemption.' And the Government complied with this requirement here." McFadden also found the agency had shown that disclosure of the Assessment analysis would cause foreseeable harm. He relied on Machado Amadis v. Dept of State, 971 F.3d 364 (D.C. Cir. 2020), in which the appeals court found that the FBI had shown that disclosure of Blitz forms in which DOJ attorneys identified and analyzed issues presented in FOIA appeals, would cause foreseeable harm if disclosed. Louise Trauma Center argued that the agency here had not met the standard articulated in Machado Amadis. But McFadden indicated that "here, as in Machado Amadis, the agency has 'specifically focused on the information at issue' in the Assessments �" in particular 'the analysis, opinions, deliberations and recommendations of the asylum officer.'" Louise Trauma Center argued that the agency had failed to show that it properly segregated and disclosed non-exempt information from exempt information. But McFadden pointed out that "the agency released the factual portions of the Assessments but withheld the analysis portions is also evidence that it segregated exempt from non-exempt information." He indicated that Louise Trauma Center had also conceded the adequacy of the agency's search, observing that "DHS determined that any responsive records 'would be located in the [Plaintiffs'] A-Files' �" their "Alien File' where 'all immigration transactions involving a particular individual are documented and stored.' The agency has met its burden to 'show that it made a good faith effort to conduct a search for the requested records.'" Louise Trauma Center contended that DHS had a policy-or-practice of improperly withholding the analysis sections of Assessment reports and that included improper training. McFadden noted that "Louise Trauma Center has not shown that it is likely to suffer a future injury. True, it alleges that it 'helps asylum applicants,' 'has made FOIA requests for Assessments of asylum applicants in the past and will continue to do so in the future.' But mere allegations cannot survive summary judgment." Likewise, he dismissed Louise Trauma Center's claim of inadequate training. He noted that "plaintiffs lack standing to pursue this claim too. Plaintiffs have submitted no evidence showing that they will be harmed by the allegedly inadequate training in the future."
Opinion/Order [33]Issues: Exemption 5 - Privileges - Deliberative process privilege - Deliberative FOIA Project Annotation: Judge Trevor McFadden has reaffirmed his original decision that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services properly withheld portions of the Assessment to Refer reports prepared by an asylum officer for three asylum requests of Amara Emuwa, three other individuals, and one organization under Exemption 5 (privileges). At the request of the parties, the D.C. Circuit remanded the case for further consideration in light of its opinion in Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press v. FBI, 3 F. 4th 450 (D.C. Cir. 2021), which provided guidance on how agencies should interpret the foreseeable harm standard. Reporters Committee provided nuance on the foreseeable harm standard following the D.C. Circuit's initial decision on foreseeable harm in Machado Amadis v. Dept of State, 971 F. 3d 364 (D.C. Cir. 2020). McFadden indicated that neither case had affected his original decision. He pointed out that "after Machado Amadis and Reporters Committee, agencies must make two showings. First, the agency must as always, show that a FOIA exemption applies to withheld information. Second, the agency must articulate in a 'focused and concrete' way, the harm that would result from disclosure, including the basis and likelihood of that harm. Failure to make both showings warrants disclosure." McFadden found that USCIS's explanation in this case "easily rejects'' Plaintiff's argument that the declaration is 'boilerplate.' Unlike the unmoored agency assertions in this Court's Reports Committee case, DHS 'specifically focused on the information at issue' in the Assessments and explained how disclosure of that information 'would chill internal discussions.' Specifically, asylum officers would 'temper their discussions' of a particular applicant and focus less on 'the substance of the information' in the asylum file.' And the agency discussed how disclosure would impede agency deliberations in a 'specific context,' namely,' the full and proper analysis and fair consideration of asylum requests on the merits.'" He observed that "these robust explanations from DHS carry the agency's burden under the foreseeable harm requirement." McFadden rejected the plaintiffs' argument that allegations of fraud were not relevant within the context of Exemption 5's protections. Instead, McFadden indicated that "DHS's discussion of the need for candid evaluations is enough to carry the agency's burden without any reference to fraud. Moreover, DHS has expressly tied its fraud concerns to candor inside the agency. As DHS explains, asylum officers will 'be less forthcoming in their assessments and recommendations' if they know that bad actors could use those recommendations. That type of harm â€" the 'chilling of candid advice' â€" is 'exactly what the privilege seeks to prevent' under Exemption 5."
Issues: Exemption 5 - Privileges - Deliberative process privilege - Deliberative | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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