Long v. ICE (2023)

The Transactional Records Clearinghouse Reports, Inc. (TRAC) submitted Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), seeking records related to the agencies’ enforcement activities. Among other things, the requests asked the agencies to provide the “linkage” fields that the agencies use to connect records that are associated with a particular individual, agency action, or series of events. In the event that the agencies claimed that the linkage fields could be lawfully withheld pursuant to a FOIA exemption, the requests asked the agencies to provide a substitute method for linking associated records. When several months later neither agency had responded, Public Citizen filed suit against ICE and CBP on behalf of TRAC and its co-directors, seeking disclosure of the requested records.