Sean Willman (Supervisory Special Agent, Homeland Security Investigations)

July 27, 2018 Taylor Amarel Filed via MuckRock.com DEPT MR 57032 411A Highland Ave Somerville, MA 02144-2516 requests@muckrock.com (mailto:requests@muckrock.com) RE:     ICE FOIA Case Number 2018-ICFO-52818 Dear Ms. Amarel: This acknowledges receipt of your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), dated June 30, 2018, and to your request for a waiver of all assessable FOIA fees. Your request was received in this office on June 30, 2018. Specifically, you requested All emails sent to, from, or copied to Sean Willman (Supervisory Special Agent, Homeland Security Investigations) from January 1, 2018 to Present Day containing any of the following non-case-sensitive key-strings: "EB-5", "Amarel", "Whistleblower", "stephen miller", "broken families", "resignation", "kushner", or "family separation". 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. ICE evaluates fee waiver requests under the legal standard set forth above and the fee waiver policy guidance issued by the Department of Justice on April 2, 1987, as incorporated into the Department of Homeland Security’s Freedom of Information Act regulations [1] .  These regulations set forth six factors to examine in determining whether the applicable legal standard for fee waiver has been met.  I have considered the following factors in my evaluation of your request for a fee waiver: (1) Whether the subject of the requested records concerns “the operations or activities of the government”; (2) Whether the disclosure is “likely to contribute” to an understanding of government operations or activities; (3) Whether disclosure of the requested information will contribute to the understanding of the public at large, as opposed to the individual understanding of the requestor or a narrow segment of interested persons; (4) Whether the contribution to public understanding of government operations or activities will be "significant"; (5) Whether the requester has a commercial interest that would be furthered by the requested disclosure; and (6) Whether the magnitude of any identified commercial interest to the requestor is sufficiently large in comparison with the public interest in disclosure, that disclosure is primarily in the commercial interest of the requestor. Upon review of your request and a careful consideration of the factors listed above, I have determined to grant your request for a fee waiver. ICE has 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 2018-ICFO-52818. 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 2018-ICFO-XXXXX 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. (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
[1] 6 CFR § 5.11(k).

Ms. Amarel,
ICE's final response to your FOIA request, 2018-ICFO-52818, for All emails sent to, from, or copied to Sean Willman (Supervisory Special Agent, Homeland Security Investigations) from January 1, 2018 to Present Day containing any of the following non-case-sensitive key-strings: "EB-5", "Amarel", "Whistleblower", "stephen miller", "broken families", "resignation", "kushner", or "family separation" 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

Ms. Amarel,
ICE's final response to your FOIA request, 2018-ICFO-52818, for All emails sent to, from, or copied to Sean Willman (Supervisory Special Agent, Homeland Security Investigations) from January 1, 2018 to Present Day containing any of the following non-case-sensitive key-strings: "EB-5", "Amarel", "Whistleblower", "stephen miller", "broken families", "resignation", "kushner", or "family separation" 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