Manatt v. U.S. Dep't of Homeland Sec.
| Decision Date | 20 July 2020 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 2:19-cv-01163-JDW |
| Citation | 473 F.Supp.3d 409 |
| Parties | Daniel MANATT, et al., Plaintiffs, v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania |
Garen Meguerian, Garen Meguerian, Attorney at Law, Paoli, PA, for Plaintiffs.
Garen Meguerian, Paoli, PA, pro se.
Judith A. Amorosa, U.S. Attorney's Office, Philadelphia, PA, for Defendants.
Throughout this matter, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service have demonstrated disdain for their legal obligations. They have ignored duties that the Freedom of Information Act imposes on them. They have ignored burdens of proof in this Court. And they have ignored this Court's Orders. As nearly as the Court can tell, DHS and USCIS think that they should get special treatment, either because they are besieged with FOIA requests, because they are part of the Government, or both. But being the Government does not entitle them to special treatment. If anything, the opposite should be true. Government agencies should hold themselves up to the highest standards, as an example of lawfulness, rather than seeking special treatment.
The only thing that saves DHS and USCIS from a worse fate in this case is that Plaintiffs Daniel Manatt and Garen Meguerian have not mustered evidence to prove that this type of conduct is a pattern or practice. The Court will therefore grant summary judgment to DHS and USCIS on that claim. The Court will require DHS and USCIS to submit additional evidence about the search that they conducted. It will also require them to submit several documents for in camera review. And it will hold a hearing at which DHS and USCIS must present testimony from the senior-most official who decided that the agencies did not need to comply strictly with this Court's Order.
On October 9, 2018, Mr. Manatt and Mr. Meguerian submitted a FOIA request letter to USCIS, which is an "operational component" of DHS. In their request, Plaintiffs request documents relating to the so-called "Zero-Tolerance Policy for Criminal Illegal Entry," which they claim was "announced by the Department of Justice on or about April 6, 2018." (ECF No. 22-3 at 2.) FOIA requires agencies to respond to requests within 20 working days. See 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(A)(i). USCIS did not meet that deadline, though. As of March 2019, USCIS had not responded to Plaintiffs’ request.
On September 9, 2019, Plaintiffs submitted a second FOIA request to USCIS that duplicated their initial request. USCIS did not respond in a timely way, so Plaintiffs followed up by letter in October 2019. In a letter dated December 16, 2019, USCIS told Plaintiffs that because the second request duplicated the first request, USCIS would not take any further action on it.
Plaintiffs filed suit against USCIS and DHS on March 19, 2019. On April 10, 2019, USCIS sent a letter to Mr. Meguerian informing him that it had completed its review of the documents and identified 9,182 responsive pages. But USCIS still did not release any documents or a Vaughn Index. On June 17, 2019, Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint. In it, they assert four counts: (1) failure to disclose responsive records; (2) failure to conduct an adequate search for records; (3) declaratory relief for failure to timely produce responsive records; and (4) injunctive relief for failure to implement a FOIA-compliant policy or practice.
On November 4, 2019, USCIS provided Plaintiffs with its first Vaughn Index, cataloging documents or portions of documents that it intended to withhold. The following day, USCIS provided Plaintiffs with a new series of records responsive to the FOIA request. In a cover letter, USCIS stated that it identified 9,180 responsive pages. The letter enclosed 6,909 pages in their entirety. USCIS withheld 164 pages in full and 694 pages in part, and it referred 1,413 to DHS for evaluation. Plaintiffs informed USCIS that the Vaughn Index was insufficient because it only included vague and general descriptions.
On November 19, 2019, the parties jointly asked the Court for more time to file summary judgment motions. In their motion, they explained that USCIS did not control DHS's response for the documents that USCIS had referred to it and said that USCIS would "urge" DHS to hurry up. (ECF No. 18 at 3.) The Court granted the motion in part and said, "On or before December 20, 2019, DHS shall produce any of the documents designed by USCIS as ‘Referred to DHS for direct release’ for which DHS has not articulated a specific legal basis for withholding" and required DHS and USCIS to provide an updated Vaughn index to Plaintiffs the same day. (ECF No. 19.)
USCIS produced an amended Vaughn Index. However, DHS did not comply with the Court's Order requiring production of documents that USCIS referred to it. In their opposition to Plaintiffs’ summary judgment, Defendants conceded that they "did not meet the Court ordered deadline to produce documents referred to it by USCIS or to produce a Vaughn Index." (ECF No. 25 at 7.) Defendants have never filed an update about the production of those documents. On April 1, 2020, Defendants reported to the Court by letter that DHS "continues to work diligently to complete a Vaughn Index of documents referred to it by USCIS for its review." That is the last information that the Court has.
The parties have filed cross-motions for summary judgment. Plaintiffs argue in their motion that USCIS failed to implement a FOIA-compliant policy or practice and failed to conduct an adequate response for records, that DHS violated the Court's Order compelling the release of documents, and that FOIA does not authorize USCIS's decision to withhold documents. Defendants’ motion argues that FOIA authorized USCIS to withhold document and that DHS was working on releasing the documents that USCIS referred to it.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(a) permits a party to seek, and a court to enter, summary judgment "if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). "[T]he plain language of Rule 56 [(a)] mandates the entry of summary judgment, after adequate time for discovery and upon motion, against a party who fails to make a showing sufficient to establish the existence of an element essential to that party's case, and on which that party will bear the burden of proof at trial." Celotex Corp. v. Catrett , 477 U.S. 317, 322, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986) (quotations omitted). In ruling on a summary judgment motion, a court must "view the facts and draw reasonable inferences ‘in the light most favorable to the party opposing the [summary judgment] motion.’ " Scott v. Harris , 550 U.S. 372, 378, 127 S.Ct. 1769, 167 L.Ed.2d 686 (2007) (quotation omitted). The filing of cross–motions does not change this analysis. See Transportes Ferreos de Venezuela II CA v. NKK Corp. , 239 F.3d 555, 560 (3d Cir. 2001). It "does not constitute an agreement that if one is rejected the other is necessarily justified or that the losing party waives judicial consideration and determination whether genuine issues of material fact exist." Id. at 560 (citation omitted).
FOIA requires that an agency make a determination on a FOIA request within 20 business days after receiving the request. 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(A)(i). An agency may extend its response time in case of "unusual circumstances," by no more than 10 business days provided that it sends the "written notice." 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(B)(i). It is undisputed that USCIS did not respond to Plaintiffs’ FOIA request in the time that the statute required. In fact, it took over eight months for USCIS to respond to Plaintiffs’ initial FOIA request, after Plaintiffs filed this lawsuit. In the Opposition to Plaintiffs’ Motion, Defendants point to the burden of complying with FOIA requests, noting that USCIS receives approximately 20% of all FOIA requests across federal agencies, totaling more than 190,000 requests in 2019. In an effort to be "fair and expeditious" (ECF No. 25-3 at ¶ 8), USCIS processes FOIA requests on a first-in, first-out basis.
USCIS's conduct violates FOIA. Congress made a choice to include in the statute an express 20-day requirement, with limited exceptions. No doubt, the proliferation of electronic records, growth of the federal government, and a more politicized environment make compliance with that requirement herculean. But the challenge of complying with FOIA is not an excuse for non-compliance. The law applies to federal agencies like USCIS just like it does to everyone else. One might expect Government agencies to hold themselves to a higher standard. But in this case, one would be disappointed. If circumstances have made FOIA compliance impossible, then USCIS's remedy is to ask Congress to change the law. Neither USCIS nor any other federal department or agency can modify or ignore a Congressional enactment, regardless of the difficulty of complying.
Under FOIA, an agency has a duty to conduct a reasonable search for responsive records. See Abdelfattah v. U.S. Dep't of Homeland Sec. , 488 F.3d 178, 182 (3d Cir. 2007). The agency has the burden of proving the reasonableness of its search. See Powell v. United States Dep't of Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control , 317 F. Supp. 3d 551, 554 (D.D.C. 2018) (citing Steinberg v. U.S. Dep't of Justice , 23 F.3d 548, 551 (D.C. Cir. 1994) ). The "relevant inquiry is not whether there might exist any other documents possibly responsive to the request, but rather whether the search for those documents was adequate. " Abdelfattah , 488 F.3d at 182 (3d Cir. 2007) (emphasis in...
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