UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA _________________________________________ ) SUSAN B. LONG, et al., ) ) Plaintiffs, ) ) v. ) Case No. 17-cv-01097 (APM) ) IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ) ENFORCEMENT, ) ) Defendant. ) _________________________________________ ) MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER I. Plaintiffs Susan B. Long and David Burnham are co-directors of the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (“TRAC”), a data gathering, data research, and data distribution organization associated with Syracuse University. See Pls.’ Mot. for Summ. J., ECF No. 12 [hereinafter Pls.’ Mot.], Decl. of Susan B. Long, ECF No. 12-1 [hereinafter Long Decl.], ¶ 2. TRAC’s primary purpose is to provide “comprehensive information about the staffing, spending, and enforcement activities of the federal government.” Id. ¶ 3. For years, Plaintiffs have submitted monthly Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) requests to Defendant Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) seeking certain data within ICE’s Enforcement Integrated Database (“EID”). See Pls.’ Mot., Pls.’ Resp. to Def.’s Statement of Facts & Additional Statement of Facts [hereinafter Pls.’ Stmt.], ¶¶ 85–88, 90–91; Def.’s Mem. of P. & A. in Opp’n to Pls.’ Mot. & Reply to Pls.’ Opp’n to Def.’s Mot. for Summ. J., ECF No. 16 [hereinafter Def.’s Reply], Def.’s Resp. to Pls.’ Stmt. [hereinafter Def.’s Reply Stmt.], ¶¶ 85–88, 90–91. The EID is an electronic database owned and operated by ICE that “captures and maintains information relating to the investigation, arrest, booking, detention, and removal of persons encountered during immigration and law enforcement investigations and operations conducted by ICE” and other component agencies within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”). See Def.’s Mot. for Summ. J., ECF No. 11 [hereinafter Def.’s Mot.], Decl. of Marla Jones, ECF No. 11-2 [hereinafter Jones Decl.], ¶¶ 6–7; see also id. (explaining that the EID is a “common database repository for all records created, updated, and accessed by a number of [DHS] software applications” that “provides users with the capability to access a person-centric and/or event- centric view of . . . data” and “allows ICE officers to manage cases from the time of an alien’s arrest, in-processing, or placement into removal proceedings, through the final case disposition”); id. ¶ 8 (“The EID is used as data storage throughout the immigration enforcement lifecycle from arrest to removal or release.”). In their monthly FOIA requests, 1 Plaintiffs sought from the EID updated, anonymous case- by-case information about each person whom ICE deported as a result of the Secure Communities Program, an immigration enforcement program administered by ICE, and its temporary successor, the Priority Enforcement Program. 2 Pls.’ Stmt. ¶¶ 77–79, 86; see Def.’s Reply Stmt. ¶¶ 77–79, 86. As is relevant here, each request identified the specific case-by-case information requested by 1 Plaintiffs submitted their first request for anonymous case-by-case information in 2012 and began renewing this request on a monthly basis in February 2013. Pls.’ Stmt. ¶¶ 86–87. Each monthly request sought data from a predetermined start date updated through the most recently completed month at the time of the request. Id. ¶ 88. ...
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