Coronavirus Response
| Tracking # |
2020-ICAP-00437 |
| Submitted | March 12, 2020 |
| Est. Completion | None |
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Communications
From: Jeremy Jong
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, I hereby request the following records:
1. Any electronic communications to and from ICE New Orleans Field Office director Dianne Witte containing the words "coronavirus" or "COVID-19." Her email address is diane.l.witte@ice.dhs.gov.
2. Any electronic communications to and from any ICE New Orleans Assistant Field Office director John Hartnett containing the words "coronavirus" or "COVID-19." His email address is John.hartnett@ice.dhs.gov.
3. Any electronic communications to and from any ICE New Orleans Assistant Field Office director Alcide R. Benoit containing the words "coronavirus" or "COVID-19." His email address is Alcide.R.Benoit@ice.dhs.gov.
4. Any policy or written memorandum prepared by ICE containing the words "coronavirus" or "COVID-19."
Disclosure of the information is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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,
Jeremy Jong
From: Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Submitted on Friday, March 13, 2020 - 00:20
Submitted by user: Anonymous
Submitted values are:
Select the DHS component you wish to submit your request to: : U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Title:
First Name: Jeremy
Middle Initial:
Last Name: Jong
Suffix:
Email Address: requests@muckrock.com
Country: United States
Address 1: MuckRock News DEPT MR 90647
Address 2: 411A Highland Ave
City: Somerville
State: Massachusetts
Zip Code: 02144
Telephone Number: 617-299-1832
Fax Number:
Are you requesting records on yourself? No
If yes, you must check the perjury statement:
By initialing here you are providing your electronic signature.:
Please describe the records you are seeking as clearly and precisely as
possible:
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, I hereby request the following
records:
1. Any electronic communications to and from ICE New Orleans Field Office
director Dianne Witte containing the words "coronavirus" or "COVID-19." Her
email address is diane.l.witte@ice.dhs.gov.
2. Any electronic communications to and from any ICE New Orleans Assistant
Field Office director John Hartnett containing the words "coronavirus" or
"COVID-19." His email address is John.hartnett@ice.dhs.gov.
3. Any electronic communications to and from any ICE New Orleans Assistant
Field Office director Alcide R. Benoit containing the words "coronavirus" or
"COVID-19." His email address is Alcide.R.Benoit@ice.dhs.gov.
4. Any policy or written memorandum prepared by ICE containing the words
"coronavirus" or "COVID-19."
Disclosure of the information is in the public interest because it is likely
to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or
activities of the government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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,
Jeremy Jong
Upload documents directly:
https://https://www.muckrock.comhttps://www.muckrock.com/
I am willing to pay fees for this request up to the amount of: $: 25
Select from the list below: An individual seeking information for personal
use and not for commercial use.
I request a waiver of all fees for this request.:
Please provide an explanation for your request for a fee waiver:
Please select and describe in detail if you believe your request warrants
expeditious handling:
Please provide information to support your selection:
From: Immigration and Customs Enforcement
March 17, 2020 Jeremy Jong MuckRock Dept MR 90647 411A Highland Ave Somerville, MA 02144 RE: ICE FOIA Case Number 2020-ICFO-28028
This e-mail is in regards to your March 13, 2020 ICE FOIA request for various documents pertaining to the "coronavirus" or "COVID-19" (see request for details).
In conducting a search for responsive records, the ICE FOIA office has determined that further clarification is needed regarding your request. Could you please provide a time frame for a more adequate search pertaining to your request. Please provide the ICE FOIA office with a response as soon as possible to avoid any further delay in the processing of your request. If a response is not received within 30 days, your request will be administratively closed.
Sincerely,
ICE FOIA
From: Jeremy Jong
Thank you for the response. Please include all communications between January 1, 2020 and present.
From: Immigration and Customs Enforcement
June 26, 2020 Jeremy Jong MuckRock Dept MR 90647 411A Highland Ave Somerville, MA 02144 2020-ICFO-58258 (New) Dear Mr. Jong: This acknowledges receipt of your June 26, 2020, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), for various documents pertaining to the "coronavirus" or "COVID-19" between January 1, 2020 and present (see request for details). Your request was received in this office on June 26, 2020. 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 2020-ICFO-58258. 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 2020-ICFO-58258 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 (http://www.dhs.gov/foia-status) http://www.dhs.gov/foia-status (866) 633-1182, or you may contact our FOIA Public Liaison, Fernando Pineiro, 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.
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: Immigration and Customs Enforcement
July 08, 2020 Jeremy Jong MuckRock Dept MR 90647 411A Highland Ave Somerville, MA 02144 RE: ICE FOIA Case Number 2020-ICFO-58258 Dear Mr. Jong: This acknowledges receipt of your June 26, 2020, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), for various documents pertaining to the "coronavirus" or "COVID-19" between January 1, 2020 and present (see request for details). Your request was received in this office on June 26, 2020. After careful review of your FOIA request, we determined that your request is too broad in scope, did not specifically identify the records which you are seeking, or only posed questions to the agency. Records must be described in reasonably sufficient detail to enable government employees who are familiar with the subject area to locate records without placing an unreasonable burden upon the agency. For this reason, §5.3(b) of the DHS regulations, 6 C.F.R. Part 5, require that you describe the records you are seeking with as much information as possible to ensure that our search can locate them with a reasonable amount of effort. Whenever possible, a request should include specific information about each record sought, such as the, title or name, author, recipients, you believe created and/or controls the record. The FOIA does not require an agency to create new records, answer questions posed by requesters, or attempt to interpret a request that does not identify specific records. Please resubmit your request containing a reasonable description of the records you are seeking. Upon receipt of a perfected request, you will be advised as to the status of your request. If we do not hear from you within 30 days from the date of this letter, we will assume you are no longer interested in this FOIA request, and the case will be administratively closed. Please be advised that this action is not a denial of your request and will not preclude you from filing other requests in the future. Your request has been assigned reference number 2020-ICFO-58258. 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 2020-ICFO-58258 (http://www.dhs.gov/foia-status) http://www.dhs.gov/foia-status 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, Fernando Pineiro, 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.
Sincerely,
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: Jeremy Jong
I hereby appeal the adequacy of the agency's search, and the legality of the agency's withholding.
The statement of the subject matter requested must “reasonably describe” the requested information in as much detail as possible. 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3)(A)(i); see e.g. DHS regulations, 6 C.F.R. § 5.3(b). The detail of the request is “sufficient if it enabled a professional employee of the agency who was familiar with the subject area of the request to locate the record with a reasonable amount of effort.” Amending the Freedom of Information Act, H.R. Rep. No. 93-876 (1974). An agency must make “a good faith effort to conduct a search for the requested records, using methods which can be reasonably expected to produce the information requested,” Oglesby v. United States Dep't of Army, 920 F.2d 57, 68 (D.C.Cir.1990).
In the agency's July 8, 2020 form response, you wrote, "[w]henever possible, a request should include specific information about each record sought, such as the, title or name, author, recipients, you believe created and/or controls the record." However, this request contains the authors and recipients of the records sought, the email addresses of those authors and recipients emails with which to filter the request. On March 17, 2020, your agency asked to provide a time frame for a more adequate search. On March 29, 2020, I responded "please include all communications between January 1, 2020 and present." These criteria are more than adequate for a professional employee to locate the requested records. The withholding of records is therefore unlawful.
Please process this appeal within the period allowed by law and remand to the agency for re-tasking and re-processing consistent with the Act.
From: Immigration and Customs Enforcement
**Please Do Not Respond Directly -This email has been sent on behalf of ice-foia@dhs.gov**
We have received your Freedom of Information Act request for appealing the adequacy of the search and withholdings of various documents pertaining to the "coronavirus" or "COVID-19" between January 1, 2020 and present (see request for details) and have assigned it tracking number 2020-ICAP-00437. Please refer to the attached Acknowledgement Letter for more information.
ICE FOIA.
From: Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Mr. Jong,
ICE's final response to your FOIA request, 2020-ICAP-00437, for appealing the adequacy of the search and withholdings of various documents pertaining to the "coronavirus" or "COVID-19" between January 1, 2020 and present (see request for details) is attached.
Please note that the attachment may be password protected. If you are prompted to enter a password when opening the attachment and you did not receive a password it may be in your junk/spam folder.
Sincerely,
ICE FOIA
From: Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Mr. Jong,
I am reaching out in regards to ICE FOIA Appeal number 2020-ICAP-00437. Upon remand we conducted a search for records and located over 53,000 pages of records. We are reaching out to see if you would be willing to narrow the scope of the request or to see if there is some specific records you are looking for.
If you would be willing to narrow the scope please feel free to contact me at the email address provided. If you want proceed with processing this request it will take us years to complete it. We process our oldest cases first and have a backlog of cases much older than this case. If you would be willing to work with us to narrow the scope please reach out at your earliest convenience and I would be happy to discuss this with you. Sincerely, Matthias Headland, Supervisory Paralegal Specialist matthias.headland@ice.dhs.gov (mailto:matthias.headland@ice.dhs.gov)
From: Jeremy Jong
Thank you for this response. I hereby assign my interest in the response to this request to my employer, Al Otro Lado. See Nat'l Sec. Counselors v. CIA., 898 F.Supp.2d 233, 254 (D.D.C. 2012).
From: Jeremy Jong
Thank you for this response. I hereby assign my interest in the response to this request to my employer, Al Otro Lado. See Nat'l Sec. Counselors v. CIA., 898 F.Supp.2d 233, 254 (D.D.C. 2012).
From: Immigration and Customs Enforcement
February 18, 2022 Jeremy Jong MuckRock Dept MR 90647 411A Highland Ave Somerville, MA 02144 RE: ICE FOIA Case Number 2020-ICAP-00437
This e-mail is in regards to your July 12, 2020 ICE FOIA request for appealing the adequacy of the search and withholdings of various documents pertaining to the "coronavirus" or "COVID-19" between January 1, 2020 and present.
I will be reaching back out to you with details on how I can proceed and with specific search terms.
Sincerely,
ICE FOIA
From: Immigration and Customs Enforcement
February 18, 2022 Jeremy Jong MuckRock Dept MR 90647 411A Highland Ave Somerville, MA 02144 RE: ICE FOIA Case Number 2020-ICAP-00437
This e-mail is in regards to your July 12, 2020 ICE FOIA request for appealing the adequacy of the search and withholdings of various documents pertaining to the "coronavirus" or "COVID-19" between January 1, 2020 and present.
In conducting a search for responsive records, the ICE FOIA office has determined that further clarification is needed regarding your request. Keeping the dates of the search. I wanted to propose that we provide responsive documents with the following search terms:
* New Orleans
* COVID-19
* Final policy's
* Memorandums
* Diane Witte
* John Hartnett
* Alcide Benoit
If you agree to the above search terms, please reply to this email with "agree to search terms" .
Regards,
ICE FOIA
From: Jeremy Jong
Agree to search terms.
From: Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Dear Jeremy Jong,
The password to open the responsive records delivered in a separate email for 2020-ICAP-00437 is listed below. If you do not receive the email containing the responsive documents within a reasonable timeframe please contact our office at foia-obim@hq.dhs.gov. (mailto:foia-obim@hq.dhs.gov)
Document Password: T831kd2R
Sincerely, OBIM FOIA Branch
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 March 13, 2020. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response. You had assigned it reference number #2020-ICAP-00437.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Good day,
FOIA request 2020-ICAP-00437 has processed and closed. The final response was delivered on 4/1/2022 to requests@muckrock.com. Please check you spam/junk folder for any misdirected emails. In the event that you did not receive the final response, you may provide us with an alternative email address or mailing address and we will resend the documents as soon as possible.
Thank you,
ICE-FOIA
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