FOIA Request Refusal By ICE

McHenry County Board members are not the only ones denied requested FOIA information. The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) recently charged Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of illegally preventing the public from obtaining information that would show what the government is doing and not doing to enforce federal immigration laws. TRAC is a data gathering,data research, and data distribution organization at Syracuse University.

The charge and supporting information were outlined in a letter from TRAC to the agency's Freedom of Information director, Catrina M. Pavlik-Keenan. The letter noted that in violation of the FOIA law, ICE had ruled that anonymous statistical data which the agency formerly released -- such as the city or state where an alien was arrested, the details of any criminal charges, and the facility where the alien is currently being detained -- were now "unavailable." Such a blanket ruling violates long-standing provisions of the FOIA, agency rules and the transparency policies and guidelines promulgated by President Obama and Attorney General Holder.

For TRAC's press release, the September 22 letter from ICE announcing its current position and TRAC's October 4 responsego to

TRAC is self-supporting and depends on foundation grants, individual contributions and subscription fees for the funding needed to obtain, analyze and publish the data we collect on the activities of the US Federal government.