Agencies Seek Reversal in FOIA Suit Over Trump Administration Vetting at US Border

A Manhattan federal judge ruled in 2019 that the agencies did not carry their burden with regard to certain internal memos and directed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to reassess its position and to disclose all responsive non-exempt materials.

By Tom McParland, NY Law Journal, Jan. 6, 2022

A government lawyer asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Thursday to reverse a lower court ruling that required federal agencies to produce documents related to the Trump Administration’s alleged “ideological screening” of immigrants and refugees at the border.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Blain said the records, requested by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University in 2017, included sensitive training materials and procedures for identifying suspected terrorists that, if divulged, could provide a “playbook” for bad actors to evade detection.

Read more here (accessible with free subscription).

District court decision is here.

Recording of Second Circuit argument is here.