Rojas-Vega v. U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement

302 F. Supp. 3d 300
CourtCourt of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
DecidedMarch 26, 2018
DocketCivil Action No. 16–2291 (ABJ)
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 302 F. Supp. 3d 300 (Rojas-Vega v. U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rojas-Vega v. U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement, 302 F. Supp. 3d 300 (D.C. Cir. 2018).

Opinion

AMY BERMAN JACKSON, United States District Judge

Plaintiff Dany Rojas-Vega has brought this action under the Freedom of Information *303Act ("FOIA"), see 5 U.S.C. § 552, against United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") and the United States Department of Homeland Security ("DHS").1 The parties have filed cross-motions for summary judgment. For the reasons discussed below, the Court will grant summary judgment in favor of ICE and deny plaintiff's motion.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

"Pursuant to the Immigration and Nationality Act ... the Secretary of Homeland Security is charged with the administration and enforcement of laws relating to the immigration and naturalization of aliens." Mem. of P. & A. in Support of Defs.' Mot. for Summ. J. ("Defs.' Mem."), Declaration of Matthew Riley, Acting Deputy FOIA Officer, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("Riley Decl.") ¶ 26. According to the declarations submitted in this case, "ICE is the largest investigative arm of DHS, and ... is tasked with preventing any activities that threaten national security and public safety by investigating the people, money, and materials [supporting] illegal enterprises." Riley Decl. ¶ 26. It performs "the investigative and interior enforcement elements of the [former] U.S. Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service." Id. ¶ 6. ICE's Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations ("ERO") is responsible for "identify[ing], arrest[ing], and remov[ing] aliens who present a danger to national security or are a risk to public safety, as well as those who enter the United States illegally or otherwise undermine the integrity of our immigration laws and our border control efforts." Id. ¶ 7. Among other duties, ERO "transports removable aliens from point to point, manages aliens in custody or in an alternative detention program ..., and removes individuals from the United States who have been ordered deported."Id.

The ICE FOIA Office processes and responds to any FOIA requests that ICE receives. Id. ¶ 2. Its staff determines which program office within ICE is "reasonably likely to possess records responsive to [each] request[,] if any[,] and to initiate [a] search[ ] in [that] program office[ ]." Id. ¶ 5. FOIA Office staff then forwards the request to the appropriate program office's designated point of contact ("POC"), the person primarily "responsible for communications between that program office and the ICE FOIA Office." Id. The POC reviews the FOIA request and "any case-specific instructions that may have been provided," id. , and in turn forwards the request and instructions "to the individual employee(s) or component office(s) within the program office [the POC believes is] reasonably likely to have responsive records[.]" Id. The designated employee or component office staff member is directed to conduct a search of the "file systems, including both paper and electronic files, which in [his or her] judgment, based on [his or her] knowledge of the manner in which [the office] routinely keep[s] records, would most likely be the files [containing] responsive documents." Id. Upon completion of the search, the results are provided to the POC, "who in turn provides the records to the ICE FOIA Office." Id. At that point, FOIA Office staff "review[s] the collected records for responsiveness." Id.

*304Plaintiff alleges that on October 2, 2014, he submitted a FOIA request in an email message to ICE's FOIA Office. Compl. ¶ 10. He received no response to the October 2014 email, and "filed a follow-up request on May 30, 2016." Mem. of P. & A. in Support of Prelim. Inj., ECF No. 34-1 ¶ 17; Riley Decl. ¶ 9. ICE treated plaintiff's May 30, 2016 email as a new FOIA request, see Riley Decl. ¶¶ 3, 9, and assigned it a reference number, 2016-ICFO-38593, see Pl.'s Opp'n to [41, 42] Def.'s Response & Mem. of P. & A. in Support of Granting Pl.'s Combined Cross-Mot. for Summ. J. and Discovery [36] ("Pl.'s Reply"), ECF No. 45-2 at 13 (email to plaintiff from ICE FOIA Office dated June 13, 2016, acknowledging receipt of ICE FOIA Request 2016-ICFO-38593 on May 30, 2016). "Plaintiff requested all ICE records pertaining to his state criminal court transcripts for case number M707038." Riley Decl. ¶ 9.

Plaintiff has filed several exhibits with his many submissions to the Court. Among these exhibits are 18 pages of email correspondence between plaintiff and the ICE FOIA Office. See generally Pl.'s Reply, ECF No. 45-2. In an email dated June 17, 2016, plaintiff provides more specifics about the scope of his original October 2014 request, and he made it clear that he was still seeking:

Specific transcripts to the Oct[ober] 6, 1995 state proceedings in case M707038 and the name(s) of the District Counsel (INS) that was contacted by the District Attorney's Office on October 6, 1995, requested by me to former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service ("INS") and related information....

Id. , ECF No. 45-2 at 15.

This was not plaintiff's first effort to obtain transcripts of these state court proceedings from immigration authorities. See Compl. ¶¶ 3, 6. In June 2003, plaintiff submitted a FOIA request "to former INS located at 880 Front Street, Suite 1234, San Diego, CA 92101-8834," Pl.'s Reply, ECF No.

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302 F. Supp. 3d 300, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rojas-vega-v-us-immigration-customs-enforcement-cadc-2018.