Fellowship of Friends Immigration Site Visit (Department of Homeland Security)
| Tracking # |
2020-ICFO-35847 2020-HQFO-00973 |
| Multi Request | Fellowship of Friends Immigration Site Visit |
| Submitted | April 11, 2020 |
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Communications
From: Jennings Brown
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, I hereby request the following records:
All records, specifically including previously unreleased records, relating to or mentioning investigations that involved a search of Fellowship of Friends property in Oregon House, California on April 3, 2007—including investigative material leading up to, during, and after the site visit of the Fellowship of Friends property.
A report of the property visit was obtained through a FOIA and published on this blog: https://robertearlburton.blogspot.com/2007/06/citizenship-and-immigration-services.html
That report says that on January 3, 2005, the ASAIC, Sacramento received a lead from the ICE Law Enforcement Support Center (LESC) tip-line relating to a group called the Fellowship of Friends in Oregon House, California. The report also says that Citizenship and Immigration Services Fraud Detection and National Security officers conducted a site visit and compliance review at the Fellowship of Friends compound in Oregon House, California. According to the report, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security were also involved in the site visit.
I am a member of the news media and request classification as such. I have previously written for Esquire magazine, Popular Mechanics magazine, and Gizmodo. My articles have been widely read, with some reaching over 1 million readers. As such, I have a reasonable expectation of publication and my editorial and writing skills are well established.
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,
Jennings Brown
From: Department of Homeland Security
Good afternoon, Attached is our final response to your request. If you need to contact this office again concerning your request, please provide the DHS reference number. This will enable us to quickly retrieve the information you are seeking and reduce our response time. This office can be reached at 866-431-0486. Regards, DHS Privacy Office
Disclosure & FOIA Program
STOP 0655
Department of Homeland Security
245 Murray Drive, SW
Washington, DC 20528-0655
Telephone: 1-866-431-0486 or 202-343-1743
Fax: 202-343-4011
Visit our FOIA website
From: Department of Homeland Security
April 27, 2020 Jennings Brown MuckRock News , RE: ICE FOIA Case Number 2020-ICFO-35847 Dear Mr. Brown: This acknowledges receipt of your April 23, 2020, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), for seeking records regarding all records, specifically including previously unreleased records, relating to or mentioning investigations that involved a search of Fellowship of Friends property in Oregon House, California on April 3, 2007—including investigative material leading up to, during, and after the site visit of the Fellowship of Friends property. Your request was received in this office on April 23, 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-35847. 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-35847 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: Department of Homeland Security
Dear Jennings Brown,
The password to open the responsive records delivered in a separate email for 2020-ICFO-35847 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: 6106bx8u
Sincerely, OBIM FOIA Branch
From: Department of Homeland Security
Mr. Brown,
ICE's final response to your FOIA request, 2020-ICFO-35847, for seeking records regarding all records, specifically including previously unreleased records, relating to or mentioning investigations that involved a search of Fellowship of Friends property in Oregon House, California on April 3, 2007—including investigative material leading up to, during, and after the site visit of the Fellowship of Friends property 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
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2020-ICFO-35847
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