ICE detainee referrals (Scottsdale Police Department)

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the state open records law, Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. Secs. 39-121 to 39-122 and 39-128, I hereby request the following records:

A list or log of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement referrals made by the Scottsdale Police Department since January 2009 grouped by month, year, and reason for arrest, reason for referral, and whether ICE took custody of the arrestee or not. If no such log is kept, please perform a word search on the police reporting system, using keywords: Immigration, ICE and detainer, and provide copies of records that indicate a referral was made to ICE.

I also request that, if appropriate, fees be waived as I believe this request is in the public interest. The requested documents will be made available to the general public free of charge as part of the public information service at MuckRock.com, processed by a representative of the news media/press and is made in the process of news gathering and not for commercial usage.

In the event that fees cannot be waived, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I would request your response within ten (10) business days.

Sincerely,

Dongjae Jung

Thank you, and apologies for sending this to the wrong contact. Can you please send the correct contact information for the records section for direct followup?

Thank you.

To Whom It May Concern:

I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on Jan. 29, 2014. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.

Thank you for your help.

From: Dongjae Jung
To:
Darcy Nichols
Public Safety Records Manager
Scottsdale Police Department
Scottsdale, AZ 85281

This is an appeal, in which I am considered as a “commercial requester” by your agency.
As a researcher and doctoral candidate in the School of Public Administration at Arizona State University, my goal is to critically analyze U.S. immigration policy and related dynamics at the intergovernmental level. To do so, as a researcher, I am collecting public data from federal and local agencies dealing with immigration and migration-related policy. Public agencies sometimes do not release concrete information for various reasons, and under this situation, people have the right to request that your agency provide more concrete and transparent information to increase “public understanding of the operations or activities of the government,” in compliance with the federal Freedom of Information Act, U.S.C. §552 (a)(4)(iii). The Arizona Public Records Law, §39.121, also clearly mentions that “public records and other matters in the custody of any officer shall be open to inspection by any person at all times during office hours.”

Your agency said that my FOIA request is considered as a commercial request because “you charge a membership for persons to make inquiries of your data bases” so my FOIA fee waiver was denied. I argue that I am not a commercial requester for buying or selling public information. I am a researcher working in the academic field. I have no intention to sell or buy public information, and MuckRock is an “open-government tool” for increasing public understanding and public accessibility to government, not a commercial request company doing business with FOIA requests.

Please think about why people attempt to utilize a more professional and systematic investigative tool, such as MuckRock, to make FOIA requests. It is “too difficult” for the general public to access a federal agency’s public information, although they have a legitimate to do so. The main reason that the public uses online open and investigative tools such as MuckRock is due to this difficulty; this does not mean the users of MuckRock are “commercial” requesters as your agency argues.

MuckRock is a kind of by-product and effective investigative tool for meeting the public’s difficulties when they seek information from the federal government. Having a full understanding and experience of the very time-consuming process of acquiring hard-to-access public records, MuckRock streamlines and supports the whole FOIA request process for the public, via a subscription service ($40). However, this subscription fee is a service fee that MuckRock uses to provide technical support when the users attempt to make a FOIA request; it is NEVER related to selling or buying public information from FOIA requests.
Second, your agency’s interpretation on the “commercial” use of a FOIA request is arbitrary and sometimes too expansive. According to the Arizona Public Record Law, §39.121.03.D., the “Commercial Purpose” on FOIA refers to “the use of a public record for the purpose of sale or resale or for the purpose of producing a document containing all or part of the copy, printout or photograph for sale or the obtaining of names and addresses from public records for the purpose of solicitation or the sale of names and addresses to another for the purpose of solicitation or for any purpose in which the purchaser can reasonably anticipate the receipt of monetary gain from the direct or indirect use of the public record.” According to your response to my FOIA request, I as the “commercial requester” seek your agency’s information for getting profitable interests via MuckRock as an agent. This interpretation is an absolutely wrong and arbitrarily undermines a researcher’s legitimate public information request with hints of “immoral” intention based on profitability.

Administrative decisions or judgments in the process of public management and administration should be clearly and carefully made; this is related to the administrative or managerial discretion of public officials. If your agency still argues “MuckRock is considered as a commercial requester” on FOIA requests, please provide concrete and legitimate reasons. If the only reason is that MuckRock sells a subscription service to its users for supporting technical efficiency in the process of making FOIA requests, your agency is absolutely confused about the FOIA requester’s intention. MuckRock never intervenes for the users to make their FOIA requests; MuckRock provides “technical” support for users to swiftly send FOIA requests to federal agencies and effectively track how respective users’ requests are processed. If MuckRock intentionally uses users’ FOIA requests or attempts to sell or buy somebody or an organization, that is a “commercial” activity as your agency pointed out. However, as I argue, such as activity is never allowed under the MuckRock system.
Please reconsider why a fee waiver of this FOIA was denied and how open-government tools can be used for increasing public understanding and accessibility of federal information. Should you deny my appeal, please let me know so I may determine how best to proceed.
I will expect to receive your agency’s decision within 10 business days.

Regards,

Dongjae Jung

Here is my response to your last e-mail.

First, you did not respond to my last appeal in which I explained that I am not a commercial FOIA requester. You named me as a “commercial requester” because I charged a membership on this web site. Please see my appeal and respond regarding whether you still consider me a commercial requester for FOIA request.

Second, you said that the Scottsdale Police Department does not track ICE referrals, so your institution cannot produce a report for my FOIA request. In spite of your explanation, your institution has still contacted and interacted with ICE on immigrants-related public affairs based on federal-local cooperation or partnership processes, such as Secure Communities. If your institution cannot report on my previous FOIA request, please consider the following requests:

(1) How Scottsdale PD manages and processes data or records on noncitizens with immigration or criminal violation charges in the jurisdiction.
(2) Whether Scottsdale PD has contacted ICE since 2009 to deal with noncitizens caught in the jurisdiction, and if yes, please list them.

Dongjae Jung

Please tell me total estimated time and costs for processing my FOIA request.

Dongjae Jung

Please process my request and then tell me when you complete it.

Dongjae Jung

Can I pay $5 to your institution by online for processing my request? If yes, please tell me the concrete web link.
If not, do I send a check to your institution as your previous emails mention?

Thanks.

Dongjae Jung

I sent a money order ($5) to your department Records Unit last weekend. If you received it, please respond it. Thanks.

Dongjae Jung

To Whom It May Concern:

I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on Jan. 29, 2014. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.

Thank you for your help.

Thank you for your notice. Would you mind sending my request to a personal email I am using?
My personal (university) email is [Redacted].
Thanks.

Dongjae Jung