On Apr. 10, 2017, the ACLUs of Hawai'i, Northern California, and Utah filed this suit under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). This was one of over a dozen such suits; each aimed to shed light on how U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) implemented President Trump's Jan. 27 and Mar. 6 Executive Orders that ban admission to the U.S. of nationals of Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Specifically, plaintiffs sought information "concerning CBP’s local implementation of President Trump’s January 27, 2017 Executive Order...as well as any other judicial order or executive directive issued regarding Executive Order No. 1, including President Trump’s March 6, 2017 Executive Order."
The request concerned implementation at international airports within the purview of CBP's San Francisco Field Office, including Honolulu International Airport, Kona International Airport, Salt Lake City International Airport, San Francisco International Airport, and San Jose International Airport. The request also concerned the number of individuals who were detained or subjected to secondary screening, extended questioning, enforcement examination, or consideration for a waiver at the aforementioned airports pursuant to the Executive Orders.
In the complaint, plaintiffs argued that the requested records "would facilitate the public’s understanding of how Defendants implemented and enforced the Executive Orders here in the San Francisco Field Office" and that "[s]uch information is critical to the public’s ability to hold the government accountable."
On Apr. 10, the case was assigned to Hon. Saundra Brown Armstrong.
On May 8, the government filed a motion to treat all of these FOIA cases as "multi district litigation," effectively consolidating them before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. For more information about the transfer motion, see
this case.
On May 10, the government moved to stay proceedings pending the decision by the judicial panel regarding the multi district litigation. On June 22, Judge Armstrong denied the motion to stay.
On Aug. 2, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation denied defendants' transfer motion. On Aug. 14, the Court granted the parties' motion to extend their ADR deadlines to Aug. 23. On that date, the parties filed a Joint Case Management Statement contending that the case was not presently well-suited to ADR resolution, and requested relief from any automatic referral to ADR. The court granted this request on Aug. 25.
On Oct. 13, the parties filed a joint status report. On Oct. 26, the parties held a telephonic case management conference. The court requested that the government provide copies of production orders in parallel ACLU FOIA cases, which the government provided the following day.
On Dec. 20, the ACLU filed a statement of a recent relevant decision, noting that a California district court had set aside a FOIA production order and required DHS to produce at least 1,000 documents per month in
ACLU of Southern California v. DHS.
On Jan. 22, 2018, Judge Armstrong issued a scheduling order. Defendants will process 200 pages of records by Feb. 28; 400 pages by Apr. 30; and will issue bimonthly rolling productions thereafter until finishing by Dec. 31. After each bimonthly production, the parties will issue joint status reports.
The parties filed a status report on Mar. 15, 2018 noting that defendants had produced over 1200 pages. Status reports filed in May and September indicated the government continued to produce responsive records. A November status report indicated the government had completed processing records and that the ACLU was reviewing the production.
The case was briefly stayed on Jan. 9, 2019 due to appropriations issues. It resumed on Jan. 28, 2019. As of May 20, 2020 the document production and periodic status reports have continued. This case is ongoing.
The documents released by the government in all the ACLU cases are available through
this case page.
Julie Aust - 01/04/2018
Ava Morgenstern - 03/17/2018
Virginia Weeks - 11/17/2018
Alex Moody - 05/20/2020
compress summary
