On March 12, 2015, five immigration attorneys and thirteen noncitizen individuals filed this lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The plaintiffs sued U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Represented by Stacy Tolchin, the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, and the American Immigration Council, plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief. They claimed that CBP had failed to timely respond to their or their clients' FOIA requests, in violation of FOIA's statutory requirement for government agencies to respond to requests within 20 business days. Furthermore, the plaintiffs alleged that CBP had a systemic pattern and practice of such delays. The plaintiffs had been waiting for CBP’s response to their FOIA requests for at least seven months and most for more than a year. These delays had, in turn, prevented them from filing for immigration status.

On September 17, 2015, Judge James Donato denied CBP’s Motion to Dismiss, stating that "CBP’s records [as available through FOIA] are critical to noncitizens and their attorneys in evaluating immigration options and the possibility of remaining legally in the United States." 132 F. Supp. 3d 1170 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 17, 2015).

The parties settled, and Judge Donato granted their joint motion to dismiss on September 3, 2016. On September 8, 2016, the parties signed the settlement agreement. During the litigation, CBP had made significant progress in clearing its FOIA backlog from over 30,000 cases to just over 3,000, and had responded to all plaintiffs' requests. The parties agreed that CBP would post its monthly FOIA statistics on its website for three years, and that CBP would pay plaintiffs' attorney fees. The settlement agreement did not explicitly state that it was court-enforceable.

Ava Morgenstern - 01/22/2017


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