Missouri filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration on Tuesday, asking a federal judge to make the Department of Homeland Security produce information on whether illegal immigrants are being flown into the state.
In the suit, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey says that DHS has been stonewalling Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for data on the transportation of illegal immigrants within the United States. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, requests that a federal judge compel DHS to turn over the requested documents and communications.
“Once again, the Biden Administration is trying to stonewall and circumvent every aspect of the law in order to hide information from Americans,” Bailey said. “Their most recent refusal to provide the truth about the flying of illegal immigrants into Missouri is just the tip of the iceberg. It reflects a larger pattern of deploying delay and diversion tactics to avoid producing documents legally requested under FOIA.”
In its June 2022 FOIA, Missouri requested that DHS provide “communications and documents relating to the number of planes used to transport non-citizens from Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas into or within the interior United States.”
Bailey also requested “communications and documents relating to the transportation of non-citizens on aircraft into or within the State of Missouri.”
The lawsuit says that this request has been met with “federal interference,” saying that DHS gave a belated response to his request for documents with denial based on a “clearly erroneous reading” of the FOIA.
According to the lawsuit, the request was transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which said Missouri appeared to be seeking “every email” either sent or received by ICE Air, the agency’s transportation division. ICE then noted that the request was too broad.
“This game of hide and seek’ violates the spirit and the letter of FOIA, which states that an agency shall withhold information only when the agency ‘reasonably foresees that disclosure would harm an interest protected by an exemption’ or if ‘disclosure is prohibited by law,’” the lawsuit says.
A revised FOIA was submitted in March, but Bailey said the state has not received any communications from DHS.
“The transportation of illegal immigrants into Missouri is a matter of public concern, and the citizens of Missouri have a right to know the facts behind these activities,” the lawsuit says. “The DHS withholding crucial information has restricted the ability of citizens to exercise their rights as outlined by Congress in the FOIA statute.”
Missouri wants the court to declare that DHS violated FOIA law and for the department to produce the documents within 10 business days of the court’s order.
No comments: