ICE Tracking Us
ICE Tracking ICE
ICE's failure to comply with the mandatory deadlines of the Freedom of Information Act is a feature not a bug of an agency that chooses to fund programs to collect information about the public while refusing to fund programs on how the agency itself operates.
ICE internal spreadsheets show that in 2016 - 2021 ICE spent less than 1/10th of one per cent of its budget on its statutory FOIA obligations.
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The first column sums the "General Expenses," almost all spent on contractors. The second column sums salaries for ICE's FOIA employees.
The Excel spreadsheet from which these numbers were calculated were produced pursuant to litigation: Jacqueline Stevens v. Immigration and Customs Enforcmeent 1:21-cv-2232.
The data here could be used in FOIA litigation to show ICE has a pattern and practice of violating the FOIA by consistently failing to solicit and spend funds necessary to fulfill its FOIA mission. For instance, in a 2018 affidavit an ICE FOIA officer acknowledges the agency did not spend funds sufficient to comply with its mandatory FOIA obligations and suggests the problem will be remedied.
ICE budget requests along with these expenditures reveal an ongoing pattern of ICE knowingly avoiding eliciting funds necessary for its mission.
Similar information can be obtained from other agencies. The FOIA question that elicited the production is here:
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Thanks to Northwestern Farrell Fellow Caleb Young for research assistance.
