Ray v. U.S. Dept. of Justice, 89-5375
| Decision Date | 17 August 1990 |
| Docket Number | No. 89-5375,89-5375 |
| Citation | 908 F.2d 1549 |
| Parties | Michael D. RAY, Individually and as Attorney for Certain Haitian National Clients and Ives Audate, Jean Hevil Loiseau and Yvon Nicolas, Plaintiffs-Appellees, Cross-Appellants, v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Immigration and Naturalization Service and the State Department, Defendants-Appellants, Cross-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Carole A. Jeandheur, Civil Div., Federal Program Branch, Bruce G. Forrest, Leonard Schaitman, App. Staff, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., for defendants-appellants, cross-appellees.
Michael D. Ray, Neil Kolner, Miami, Fla., for plaintiffs-appellees, cross-appellants.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Before FAY and JOHNSON, Circuit Judges and FLOYD R. GIBSON *, Senior Circuit Judge.
Michael Ray, individually and on behalf of three named Haitians seeking political asylum in the United States, brought this action under the Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA") and the Administrative Procedure Act to compel the production of records from three federal agencies and for declaratory and injunctive relief from exclusion and deportation proceedings. In response to the plaintiffs' FOIA request, the Department of State produced 25 documents but redacted certain identifying information from 17 of them, claiming that the information was exempt from disclosure under FOIA. The district court ruled that the FOIA exception was not applicable and ordered the State Department to disclose the redacted information. The district court also dismissed the FOIA claims against the other two agencies, refused to enjoin the plaintiffs' deportation and exclusion proceedings, and refused the plaintiffs' request for class certification. Both sides appeal. We affirm the district court's decision.
Named as defendants in this case are the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the United States Department of Justice ("INS"); the Executive Office for Immigration Review, Office of the Immigration Judge ("EOIR"); and the United States Department of State. Primarily, the plaintiffs seek information regarding how the Haitian government treats its citizens who have attempted unsuccessfully to flee to the United States and are returned to Haiti. The plaintiffs' desire for this information was triggered by two articles in Miami newspapers in which INS officials were quoted as stating that Haitian returnees were not being persecuted after they returned to Haiti. The first article stated that an INS district director so strongly believed that Haitian returnees were not being persecuted in Haiti that he "even offered to provide names of 600 Haitians who have been sent back so that doubters can go to Haiti and speak to the people directly." Record Excerpts at 140 (quoting Miami News, March 12, 1985). In the second article, an INS official was quoted as stating that the "INS routinely sends inspectors to Haiti to interview people who have been returned by American authorities [and] failed emigees reported no persecution since their return." Record Excerpts at 119 (quoting The Miami Herald, Dec. 31, 1984).
The plaintiffs disagree with the view that returned Haitians are not subject to persecution. They submitted FOIA requests with the INS and the State Department seeking reports of interviews by INS officials with persons who had been involuntarily returned to Haiti. Dissatisfied with what they received, the plaintiffs filed this suit in November 1986 against the State Department, the INS, and the EOIR. The plaintiffs sought: (1) class certification; (2) an order compelling the defendants to comply with their FOIA requests; (3) an order enjoining the plaintiffs' final deportation and exclusion hearings until the defendants provided the requested information and for a period of six months thereafter; and, (4) an order enjoining the dissemination of disinformation by the defendants to the public concerning the fate of Haitian returnees.
The plaintiffs seek an injunction against their deportation proceedings because they believe that they cannot adequately make their cases for political asylum unless they can produce evidence that the Haitian government will persecute them if they are returned. Because of the views expressed by government officials in the Miami newspapers, the plaintiffs anticipate that the State Department, which routinely issues advisory opinions to the INS regarding asylum applications, will represent to the INS that returned Haitians do not face ill treatment in Haiti. The plaintiffs believe that the information they requested under FOIA is essential to their effort to show that they will be subject to punishment in Haiti, and thus they requested the district court to enjoin those proceedings until they receive the information and have had an opportunity to examine it.
In a motion for summary judgment, the INS maintained that it had no records that were responsive to the plaintiffs' FOIA requests, and the EOIR maintained that the district court lacked jurisdiction to consider claims against it because the plaintiffs never submitted a FOIA request to the EOIR. The State Department did produce 25 documents, but from 17 of them the names, addresses, and other identifying information were redacted. The State Department submitted that the withholding of this identifying information was sanctioned by 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(b)(6) ("Exemption 6"), which exempts from FOIA's mandatory disclosure requirements disclosures which would cause "a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy." 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(b)(6) (1988).
The district court found that the plaintiffs never made a FOIA request to the EOIR. It further found that the INS had conducted a proper search of its records pursuant to the plaintiffs' request and that the record failed to disclose that the INS was improperly withholding any relevant documents. Accordingly, the district court granted summary judgment to the INS and EOIR. Ray v. United States Dept. of Justice, 725 F.Supp. 502, 504-05 (S.D.Fla.1989).
With regard to the State Department, the district court ruled that Exemption 6 of FOIA did not apply to preclude disclosure of the redacted information. Thus, the court ordered the State Department to supply the redacted information within 15 days. Finally, the district court denied the plaintiffs' request for an order enjoining their deportation and exclusion proceedings and denied their motion for class certification. Id. at 505.
Both sides filed motions to alter or amend the judgment. The government's motion asked the district court to authorize the State Department's redactions under FOIA Exemptions 1 and 7 1, which had not been raised before; the government also presented further argument under Exemption 6. The district court did not consider the government's Exemption 1 and 7 arguments, finding that the government waived those issues by failing to raise them prior to the district court's judgment. Id. at 505-06. The district court granted the State Department's motion for a stay pending appeal.
The State Department appeals the district court's ruling ordering it to supply the redacted information. The plaintiffs cross-appeal the district court's denial of class certification, its refusal to enjoin their deportation and exclusion proceedings, and its ruling that the searches conducted by the INS and the State Department were adequate.
We affirm the district court's judgment in all respects.
We begin with the arguments raised by the State Department as appellant in this case. The State Department appeals the district court's ruling that it must disclose the information that it redacted from the documents it supplied to the plaintiffs. The government submits that the redacted information, which consists of the names and other identifying information of the Haitian returnees who were interviewed, is exempt from disclosure by 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(b)(6), which provides that FOIA's mandatory disclosure requirement does not apply to "personnel and medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy." 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(b)(6) (1988).
Because FOIA is a "broad disclosure statute which evidences a 'strong public policy in favor of public access to information in the possession of federal agencies' " Cochran v. United States, 770 F.2d 949, 954 (11th Cir.1985) (quoting Brown v. Federal Bureau of Investigation, 658 F.2d 71, 73 (2d Cir.1981)), the disclosure requirements of FOIA must be construed broadly and the exceptions narrowly. Id. Documents are presumed to be subject to disclosure; when the government seeks to invoke an exemption, it bears the burden of proving that the exemption applies. Id. See also Department of the Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 361, 96 S.Ct. 1592, 1599, 48 L.Ed.2d 11 (1976); Ely v. Federal Bureau of Investigation, 781 F.2d 1487, 1489-90 (11th Cir.1986); Currie v. Internal Revenue Service, 704 F.2d 523, 530 (11th Cir.1983).
In determining whether Exemption 6 applies we apply a balancing test, "weighing an individual's right to protection of privacy against the public's right to disclosure of government information." Cochran, 770 F.2d at 955 (citations omitted). See also Rose, 425 U.S. at 372, 96 S.Ct. at 1604. After employing that test the district court in this case concluded that Ray, 725 F.Supp. at 505.
While we believe that the privacy interests at stake here are somewhat more significant than ...
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