UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA YOLANDA VIZCARRA CALDERON Plaintiff, v. Case No. 18-cv-764 (CRC) U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, et al., Defendants. RANFIEL CASTANEDA SANCHEZ, Plaintiff, v. Case No. 18-cv-765 (CRC) U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, et al., Defendants. MEMORANDUM OPINION Plaintiffs Yolanda Vizcarra Calderon and Ranifel Castaneda Sanchez want to know why they have been denied visas to enter the United States since 2013. So they have filed Freedom of Information Act requests with various federal agencies that may have information regarding the denials. Two years ago, this Court rejected Plaintiffs’ challenge to the Drug Enforcement Agency’s response to one such request. See Vizcarra Calderon v. DOJ, 297 F. Supp. 3d 65 (D.D.C. 2018); Castaneda Sanchez v. DOJ, 297 F. Supp. 3d 188 (D.D.C. 2018). In this suit, Plaintiffs lodged various objections to the responses of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (“USCIS”), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), and the Department of State (“State”) to FOIA requests directed to those agencies. The parties have resolved all the claims regarding Plaintiffs’ requests to USCIS and ICE, and Plaintiffs no longer challenge the adequacy of State’s searches for responsive records. See Defs.’ Mot. for Summ. J. 1 n.1. All that remains are Plaintiffs’ challenges to State’s use of several FOIA exemptions to withhold 130 documents in full and 11 documents in part. 1 See Pls.’ Opp. 10 (challenging only State’s use of FOIA Exemptions 3, 5, 7(A), and 7(E)). Because the Court finds that State properly applied Exemption 3 to each withheld document, it will enter summary judgment for the Government and dismiss the case. 2 Summary judgment may be granted when the moving party establishes that there is no genuine issue of material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). In FOIA cases, summary judgment is the appropriate mechanism for determining whether an agency has discharged its obligations under the statute. See, e.g., Judicial Watch, Inc. v. CFPB, 60 F. Supp. 3d 1, 6 (D.D.C. 2014). The Court may rely on declarations or affidavits provided by agency personnel that are “relatively detailed and non-conclusory” when ruling on summary judgment. SafeCard Servs., Inc. v. SEC, 926 F.2d 1197, 1200 (D.C. Cir. 1991) (citation omitted). Such affidavits are “accorded a presumption of good faith.” Id. State asserts FOIA Exemption 3 to justify all of its withholdings. Defs.’ Mot. for Summ. J. 8. Exemption 3 permits an agency to withhold information specifically exempted from disclosure by statute, “if that statute requires that the matters be withheld from the public in such 1 State withheld sixty documents in full and five documents in part from Ms. Vizcarra Calderon and seventy documents in full and six documents in part from Mr. Castaneda Sanchez. 2 Because State properly asserted Exemption 3 for all of its withholdings, the Court need not discuss the parties’ arguments related to the other exemptions challenged by Plaintiffs. 2 a manner as to leave no discretion on ...
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