The National Press Club Journalism Institute and journalist Kathy Kiely, represented by attorneys from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and Ballard Spahr, recently secured a key victory in their yearslong legal fight to obtain records related to the detention of a Mexican journalist.
In a ruling issued last month, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia concluded that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement failed to adequately search for records NPCJI and Kiely requested under the federal Freedom of Information Act concerning how the agency restricts calls to or from detainees in its facilities in El Paso, Texas. The court also held that the agency did not sufficiently support its extensive withholdings and redactions under various FOIA exemptions.
The ruling requires ICE to turn over one record that the agency improperly withheld. While the court’s decision does not require the immediate disclosure of other requested records, it orders the agency to go a lot further in explaining why certain records should not be made public — and if ICE fails to do so, those records could eventually be released.
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