BIA Decisions on Movement of Democratic Forces in the Casamance (MFDC)
| Tracking # |
FOIA-2018-34981 2018-34981 |
| Submitted | June 6, 2018 |
| Est. Completion | None |
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Communications
From: Matthew Hoppock
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, I hereby request the following records:
Any unpublished BIA decision mentioning the Movement of Democratic Forces in the Casamance (MFDC) from January 1, 2004 to the present time.
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,
Matthew Hoppock
From: Department of Justice, Executive Office for Immigration Review
An acknowledgement letter, stating the request is being processed.
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 June 6, 2018. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed. You had assigned it reference number #2018-34981.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Department of Justice, Executive Office for Immigration Review
A no responsive documents response.
From: Matthew Hoppock
The agency did not perform an adequate search. Its determination that the agency can't search its own past decisions for a keyword is simply false. The decision says the search could not be done "in the Virtual Law Library," but surely that's not the only way to search the BIA's decisions. Recently the Third Circuit made a similar request of the agency. It asked the agency to provide all past BIA decisions that mentioned a different political group, the Bangaldesh National Party (BNP) between 2015 and 2017. Rather than tell the court such a search was not possible, the agency produced "fifty-four opinions in total." Uddin v. Attorney General, Slip Op. p. 18 (http://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/171056p.pdf). Clearly there is a way to produce these decisions. They agency did so in the Uddin case, in a very short time period at that. The search parameters are simple and should not take much work.
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