5 USC 552(a)(2)(D)(ii)(II), or Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Meetings (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
| Multi Request | 5 USC 552(a)(2)(D)(ii)(II), or Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Meetings |
| Submitted | May 19, 2022 |
| Due | June 17, 2022 |
| Est. Completion | None |
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Communications
From: Andrew Free
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, I hereby request the following records:
This is a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request aimed at understanding your agency’s compliance with the E-FOIA Amendments of 2006, and how the information contained, and omitted from, your agency’s FOIA Reading Room may come short of compliance with your obligations under the law.
Ensuring agencies proactively disclose frequently requested records helps everyone. The agency’s FOIA backlog — a longstanding, widely acknowledge concern for Congress — will be reduced by affirmative identification of frequently requested records. The agency will get fewer requests by making more of the frequently requested materials more easily accessible. Agency FOIA reviewers will not have to reinvent the wheel in processing redactions and determine which exemptions apply. And the public will get more complete and timely access to information because the agency will have posted it.
This is not an aspirational goal; it is the law.
5 U.S.C. 552(a)(2)(D)(ii)(II) requires agencies to post records that have been requested 3 or more times. The “Beetlejuice Provision”, if you will.
Our review of your agency’s public FOIA reading room, and a comparison of the publicly available FOIA logs your agency publishes, reveals that a number of thrice-requested materials appear to be missing. Consequently, we file this request to understand the process by which your agency determines what to include under the Beetlejuice Provision.
1. Please provide all calendar entries, meeting minutes, attendee lists, working papers (or similar documents), slide decks or presentations, and follow-up calendar items for any meeting your agency’s FOIA Officer or designee held to consider the agency’s affirmative releases and proactive disclosures under the Beetlejuice Provision.
2. Please provide any record reflecting your agency’s FOIA Officers’ identification of a record that may be eligible for release based upon the Beetlejuice Provision because it has been requested three times under paragraph 3. If the records requested are kept in an electronic system of records, like eFOIAExpress, we would accept a printout of requests designated as potential subject to proactive release under the Beetlejuice Provision in lieu of records responsive to this Item.
3. Any guidance your agency issued for FOIA professionals regarding identification of requests that are potentially subject to proactive release under the Beetlejuice Provision.
Please task a search period beginning on January 1, 2022, and ending May 18, 2022.
Thank you,
Andrew Free
#DetentionKills Transparency Initiative
Al Otro Lado
The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.
In the event that there are fees, 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 look forward to receiving your response to this request within 20 business days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Andrew Free
From: Immigration and Customs Enforcement
June 01, 2022 Andrew Free MuckRock News DEPT MR 129092 263 Huntington Ave Boston, MA 02115 RE: ICE FOIA Case Number 2022-ICFO-17750 Dear Mr. Free: This acknowledges receipt of your May 25, 2022, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), for records pertaining to ICE FOIA's affirmative releases and proactive disclosures under the Beetlejuice Provision. Your request was received in this office on May 25, 2022. PLEASENOTE: Requesters seekingresponsive records from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) areencouraged to create a DHS FOIA Public Access Link (PAL) accountat: . Creating a PALaccount will allow you to directly submit your FOIA request to ICE and trackthe status of your request. In PAL, you can view your prior PAL submissions,sent correspondences, and responsive records. Although PAL is preferred, ICEFOIA will continue to accept FOIA requests via email at (https://foiarequest.dhs.gov/) https://foiarequest.dhs.gov or via regularmail at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Freedom ofInformation Act Office, 500 12 ICE-FOIA@ice.dhs.gov th St. SW, STOP 5009, Washington,DC 20536-5009. Due to the increasing number of FOIA requests received by this office, we may encounter some delay in processing your request. Per Section 5.5(a) of the DHS FOIA regulations, 6 C.F.R. Part 5, ICE processes FOIA requests according to their order of receipt. Although ICE’s goal is to respond within 20 business days of receipt of your request, the FOIA does permit a 10-day extension of this time period. As your request seeks numerous documents that will necessitate a thorough and wide-ranging search, ICE will invoke a 10-day extension for your request, as allowed by Title 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(B). If you care to narrow the scope of your request, please contact our office. We will make every effort to comply with your request in a timely manner. Provisions of the FOIA allow us to recover part of the cost of complying with your request. We shall charge you for records in accordance with the DHS Interim FOIA regulations, as they apply to media requesters. As a media requester, you will be charged 10 cents per page for duplication; the first 100 pages are free. We will construe the submission of your request as an agreement to pay up to $25.00. You will be contacted before any further fees are accrued. We have queried the appropriate program offices within ICE for responsive records. If any responsive records are located, they will be reviewed for determination of releasability. Please be assured that one of the processors in our office will respond to your request as expeditiously as possible. We appreciate your patience as we proceed with your request.
Your request has been assigned reference number 2022-ICFO-17750. Please refer to this identifier in any future correspondence. To check the status of an ICE FOIA/PA request, please visit . Please note that to check the status of a request, you must enter the 2022-ICFO-17750 tracking number. If you need any further assistance or would like to discuss any aspect of your request, please contact the FOIA office. You may send an e-mail to ice-foia@ice.dhs.gov, call toll free (866) 633-1182, or you may contact our FOIA Public Liaison, Marcus Francis, in the same manner. Additionally, you have a right to right to seek dispute resolution services from the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) which mediates disputes between FOIA requesters and Federal agencies as a non-exclusive alternative to litigation. If you are requesting access to your own records (which is considered a Privacy Act request), you should know that OGIS does not have the authority to handle requests made under the Privacy Act of 1974. You may contact OGIS as follows: Office of Government Information Services, National Archives and Records Administration, 8601 Adelphi Road-OGIS, College Park, Maryland 20740-6001, e-mail at ogis@nara.gov; telephone at 202-741-5770; toll free at 1-877-684-6448; or facsimile at 202-741-5769. (http://www.dhs.gov/foia-status) http://www.dhs.gov/foia-status
Regards,
ICE FOIA Office
Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Freedom of Information Act Office
500 12th Street, S.W., Stop 5009
Washington, D.C. 20536-5009
Telephone: 1-866-633-1182
Visit our FOIA website at www.ice.gov/foia
From: Muckrock Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information Act request, copied below, and originally submitted on May 25, 2022. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Good afternoon,
For your request for a status update on 2022-ICFO-17750, we have queried the appropriate component of DHS for responsive records. If any responsive records are located, they will be reviewed for determination of releasability. We will process your request as expeditiously as possible. Upon completion of the processing, all documents that can be released will be made available to you as soon as possible. We sincerely apologize for the delay you are experiencing and appreciate your continued patience.
Sincerely,
ICE FOIA
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~WRD3951