Dear Friend of Press Freedom,
I’m Lauren Harper, the first Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy at Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), and welcome to The Classifieds. Read on to learn about the week’s top secrecy news.
The largest category of Freedom of Information Act requesters is noncitizens seeking copies of their immigration records, known as A-files. These requesters accounted for the bulk of the more than one million FOIA requests received by the Department of Homeland Security last year. Because FOIA requests are often the only way to obtain documentation required to prove or maintain legal status, any delay or change to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ FOIA office can imperil hundreds of thousands of applicants and asylum seekers.
A landmark 2020 ruling, Nightingale v. USCIS, which was the first class action FOIA case, found that the agency had a pattern of violating the act, and required it going forward to process FOIA requests for A-files in 30 days and maintain a zero-case backlog. (The court rightly noted that if an agency aggressively increases its immigration enforcement, it should similarly increase its capacity to process requests for information concerning immigration status.)
It appears USCIS is not following the court’s order. A recent whistleblower complaint and amicus brief filed by the Government Accountability Project argues that the agency is ...
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul stressed earlier this year she would be cracking down on auto insurance fraud statewide. Several months later, her office has announced more than a dozen related arrests.