Case Detail
| Case Title | AMERICAN IMMIGRATION COUNCIL v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY et al | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| District | District of Columbia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | Washington, DC | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Number | 1:2011cv01971 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Filed | 2011-11-08 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Closed | 2013-03-18 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Judge | Judge James E. Boasberg | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | AMERICAN IMMIGRATION COUNCIL | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | UNITED STATES CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Documents | Docket Complaint Complaint attachment 1 Complaint attachment 2 Complaint attachment 3 Complaint attachment 4 Complaint attachment 5 Complaint attachment 6 Complaint attachment 7 Opinion/Order [22] FOIA Project Annotation: Judge James Boasberg has blasted U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for its poor handling of a FOIA request submitted by the American Immigration Council, but although he found the agency's work exceedingly sloppy, he also found that some of the agency's responses were appropriate. The Council asked for records concerning the role of counsel in immigration proceedings. After eight months without a determination, the Council filed suit. Three months later, USCIS responded by releasing 455 pages in full and 418 pages in part. The agency withheld 1169 pages. By the time Boasberg ruled on the case, he was able to confirm the agency's Exemption 6 (invasion of privacy) claims because the Council had not addressed them. But the Council's challenges to the search and to withholdings under Exemption 5 (privileges) remained. The Council challenged the way in which the agency selected the offices to be searched as well as the searches themselves. The agency explained that because the request was considered complex it was referred to the Significant Interest Team, which identified five offices to be searched. The Council argued the agency had failed to explain why it limited its search to only five offices and suggested that the Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate also dealt with access to counsel issues. But, calling the issue "close," Boasberg agreed that the agency's search criteria were adequate. He noted that "USCIS's methodologyâ€"comparing the FOIA request to program offices' functions deduced from 'sources containing organizational and operational information about the agency and its various components, such as a reference guide'â€"is sound. USCIS could justifiably conclude that the Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate probably did not hold responsive records because its functions seem far removed from access-to-counsel issues." But Boasberg then noted that "once the searches moved to the program offices, however, the [agency affidavit's] detail thins. [The agency] explains that each chosen program office 'was tasked to conduct a search for documents responsive to AIC's FOIA request.' [It] adds that each office 'conduct[ed] the search in the manner it deem[ed] most appropriate and best calculated to locate records responsive to the specific FOIA request.'" He continued: "And that's it. The [affidavit] says nothing about what kinds of records the offices keep, which records or databases the office searched through, or how the offices conducted their searches. Indeed [the writer of the affidavit] seems not to know what the chosen program offices did after receiving the requests. The [affidavit] says only that the chosen offices turned responsive records over to the Significant Interest Team." He observed that "[the agency's affidavit] gives this Court no way to know if the chosen offices conducted adequate searches with reasonable methods." As a result, he indicated: "The Court cannot yet say whether the search was adequate, but [the agency's affidavit] certainly was not." The Council next contended that "mostâ€"if not all" of the Vaughn index explanations for withholding records under Exemption 5 were conclusory. Boasberg was inclined to agree and, as a result, ordered USCIS to produce 15 contested records for in camera review. Criticizing the agency for submitting a Vaughn index riddled with mistakes, Boasberg indicated that "the errors in the form of the index turn out to be the least of USCIS's woes here. Having now examined the withheld records, the Court concludes that most of the challenged Exemption 5 withholdings were improper, although the reason that USCIS was wrong changes with each record. The variety in errors suggests that USCIS, although it invoked Exemption 5 often, did not grasp even the basic points of this Exemption." Looking first at claims of the deliberate process privilege, Boasberg pointed out that "a 'strong theme' of this Circuit's decisions on the deliberative-process privilege 'has been that an agency will not be permitted to develop a body of "secret law," used by it in the discharge of its regulatory duties and in its dealings with the public, but hidden behind a veil of privilege because it is not designated as "formal," "binding," or "final."' Yet USCIS repeatedly casts records as predecisional when they actually convey what the Agency's policy-makers have decided." Boasberg began to examine the records. Addressing PowerPoint slides for training agency employees about interacting with attorneys, he noted that "these training slides are neither predecisional nor deliberative. A training is not a step in making a decision; it is a way to disseminate a decision already made." He next examined a series of emails between USCIS employees and the liaison for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. He pointed out that "the e-mail chain begins with the liaison asking USCIS employees to clarify specific agency policies and practices, and follows with the employees' responses, which are meant to be distributed to lawyers in the AILA. Most of these e-mails are not 'inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters,' flunking the threshold requirement for Exemption 5." The next record consisted of two documents given to immigrants by USCIS. Boasberg observed that "both of these documents were distributed to the public, they (1) are not intra-agency or inter-agency records, thus failing Exemption 5's threshold requirement, and (2) represent settled USCIS policy, not fluid policy that still must congeal." As to another record informing employees about a new policy, Boasberg indicated that "by including a long list of employees on the e-mail, moreover, the supervisor seems to aim to inform many employees (not just the one in charge of posting the notice) about the new policy. On the other hand, because the e-mail precedes the posting, arguably the decision has yet to reach its final culmination. The e-mail, moreover, encourages employees to contact the supervisor with any questions about the policy. At the end of the day, the Court concludes that even if some facts suggest that the e-mail is predecisional, it is not deliberative. There is no hint that the supervisor is still weighing her options or wants feedback from the employees; asking if employees have questions is not the same as asking if they have suggestions." USCIS had also claimed the PowerPoint slides used to train employees about interacting with private attorneys were protected by the attorney-client privilege. But Boasberg pointed out that "because these slides are a communication for attorney to client (here, USCIS), they are confidential only insofar as they rest on confidential information obtained from the client. USCIS offers no explanation of what confidential client communications might underlie these slides, and the slides themselves do not hint at underpinning confidentialities. Nor should they, the slides were used for general trainings by USCIS lawyers, and such generally applicable legal advice will rest on none of the factual particularities conveyed in a typical confidential communication by a client."
Issues: Adequacy - Search, Exemption 5 - Privileges | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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