Below is a summary of the notable FOIA court decisions and news from last month, as well as a look ahead to FOIA events in January.
Court decisions
We identified and posted 14 decisions in December. Of note was Am. First Legal Found. v. DHS (D.D.C.), a split Exemption 7(C) and 7(E) decision involving data about enforcement actions taken against certain non-citizens. With respect to Exemption 7(C), the court ruled that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement properly withheld names of non-citizens, docket numbers, and full dates of birth, but that it had not justified the blanket withholding of birth months and years, residential addresses by city, state, and country, or gag, cartel, terrorist group affiliations, and monikers. In reaching its decision, the court rejected plaintiff’s threshold argument that non-citizens have no privacy rights under FOIA, noting that plaintiff’s position was unsupported by the statute’s text and case law and would lead to absurd results. As for Exemption 7(E), the court determined that ICE properly withheld precise addresses where at-large, non-citizens could be located, but it failed to justify withholding city, state, and country data. Further, the court found that ICE properly withheld operational details about its past and future attempts to locate non-citizens, as well as “‘apprehension locations of non-citizens attempting to enter the U.S. illegally”; however, ICE fell short with respect to its Exemption 7(E) withholdings of the names of gang, cartel, and terrorist group affiliations, and monikers.
Top news
On December 9, 2024, the Office of Government Information Services issued recommendations on intelligence community records.
The FOIA Advisory Committee for the 2024-2026 term met for the third time on Dec. 5, 2024,
January calendar
Jan. 13, 2025: Deadline for agencies receiving more than 50 requests in FY 2023 to submit their 2025 Chief FOIA Officer Reports to DOJ.
Jan. 14, 2025: D.C. Circuit oral argument in McWatters v. ATF, 24-5083.
Jan, 15, 2025: DOJ Exemption 4 and Exemption 5 Training
Jan. 22, 2025: DOJ Privacy Considerations Training
Jan. 29, 2025: DOJ Administrative Appeals, FOIA Compliance, and Customer Service Training
Jan. 31, 2025: Agency deadline to post FY 2025, Quarter 1 data.