On October 13, 2017, the Protect Democracy Project filed this lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. According to the complaint, plaintiff is a nonprofit organization with a "mission is to protect our democracy from descending into a more autocratic form of government by preventing those in power from depriving Americans of a free, fair, and fully-informed opportunity to exercise ultimate sovereignty." As part of its mission, plaintiff aims to inform the public about executive branch activity, in part by filing FOIA requests and releasing the results on its website. Plaintiff was represented by its own counsel and the law firm Covington & Burling. The lawsuit was assigned to Judge Randolph D. Moss.
Under the Freedom of Information Act, plaintiff sought disclosure of agency records by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its component Customs and Border Protection (CBP), as well as the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), that would shed light on government policies and plans to hire new immigration enforcement personnel.
In his Jan. 25, 2017
Executive Order 13767 and Jan. 30, 2017
Executive Order 13768, President Trump directed DHS to hire 5,000 additional CBP agents and 10,000 additional Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. In order to meet these targets, plaintiff alleged, defendants intended to relax hiring standards and use independent contractors -- decisions that might "undermine the integrity of CBP and ICE and have negative consequences for border security."
The complaint alleged that on Aug. 4, 2017, plaintiff submitted a FOIA request to all four defendant agencies, seeking records related to the agencies' plans for addressing border enforcement and illegal immigration. The request to OPM specifically sought all documents, including communications, memoranda, assessments, and final determinations, related to DHS' requests for hiring authorities addressed in its 90-day progress report on EO 13767.
The complaint further alleged that, to date, plaintiff had not received a substantive response from any of the four defendant agencies. Plaintiff sought an expedited disclosure order under FOIA and sought legal fees.
On Oct. 24, plaintiff filed a notice in another case with the same name, stating that these two cases were related:
Protect Democracy Project v. DHS, No. 1:17-cv-02202 (D.D.C. Oct. 24, 2017).
The parties filed a series of status reports, showing that the defendants had produced some records and the parties continued to confer on the request's scope and production's responsiveness. In the joint status report dated May 6, 2019, the parties agreed that defendants CBP and OPM have completed their planned productions, and the parties had agreed that defendants DHS and OMB need not make further productions. The parties indicated that they continue to confer regarding any attorneys’ fees. Accordingly, the court ordered that the OMB and DHS were no longer required to make future productions. The parties continued to discuss the calculation of attorneys’ fees and the plaintiff’s entitled amount. The most recent joint status report by the defendants on May 19, 2020 indicate that the discussion has been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The next status report is due June 12, 2020.
This case is ongoing.
Ava Morgenstern - 05/05/2018
Virginia Weeks - 10/25/2018
Averyn Lee - 06/03/2020
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