On October 22, 2018, media site Buzzfeed and one of its reporters brought this lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and several of its components--Immigration & Customs Enforcement, Customs & Border Protection, and U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services. The case alleged violations of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Specifically, the plaintiffs had filed a FOIA request for unedited video, audio, and photographs of migrants and migrant children, and of children being separated from their parents and subsequently held in U.S. detention facilities. According to the complaint, the defendants had failed to provide an adequate response to the request. Represented by private counsel, the plaintiffs requested injunctive relief and attorney fees. The case was assigned to Judge Randolph D. Moss.

This case was interrupted by a 34-day government shutdown. The case was therefore stayed from December 30, 2018 to February 6, 2019, when the shutdown ended.

After the stay was lifted, the parties began submitting a series of joint status reports outlining their ongoing negotiations over the defendants’ search for responsive documents. On June 5, 2020, the parties reported that negotiations had become deadlocked, with the defendants still refusing to hand over the requested child detention records.

In response to the breakdown in negotiations, Judge Moss ordered the parties to submit short notices outlining the bases for any anticipated motions for summary judgement. On June 30, the defendants filed their notice, listing two anticipated arguments: first, that they argued that the plaintiffs’ FOIA request did not “reasonably describe” the records sought in a way that ICE could process without undue burden. Second, the defendants insisted that they had no responsive records depicting “migrant children being separated from their parents,” because ICE did not separate children and parents, but rather held “family units” together in “family residential centers.” A week later, the plaintiffs submitted their own notice. They argued that the defendants’ pre-motion filing ignored months of negotiations and concessions regarding the scope of their FOIA request, and that this request was no longer burdensome or unreasonably described, as they were now seeking only those records that should have been preserved in connection with five other federal lawsuits.

This case is still ongoing as of August 15, 2020. The defendants’ full motion for summary judgment is due on August 28, 2020 and the plaintiff’s response and cross motion is due on October 2, 2020.

Averyn Lee - 03/22/2019
Cody Wiles - 08/15/2020


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