December 19, 2025
Disclosure Reveals USCIS Closed FOIA Requests to Fake Court Compliance
WASHINGTON—Today, Government Accountability Project submitted a protected whistleblower disclosure to Congress revealing that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) National Records Center (NRC) implemented policies to prematurely close thousands of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests—often despite the existence of responsive records—to manufacture the appearance of compliance with a federal court order.
In its December 15, 2025 compliance report, USCIS claimed to have reduced its A-File FOIA backlog by 99.96%, from thousands of pending requests to just two. Internal documents reveal that NRC leadership disseminated new policies, beginning the day after its September 2025 compliance report, directing staff to close cases based on minor discrepancies in optional identifying information, even when matching records had already been located.
The whistleblower, a Marine Corps infantry combat veteran with over a decade of service at NRC and a record of exemplary performance, observed leadership circulate an email stating "Here's a way to close 99% of FOIA requests as failure to comply." Under the new policies, requests are closed for reasons including listing an attorney's address, inverting month and day in a birthdate, or minor spelling variations in a parent's name, even when the requester's A-Number matches agency records.
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