International Refugee Assistance Project v. United States Citizenship and…

Background

The International Refugee Assistance Project, Inc. brought a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The organization had submitted identical requests to USCIS and the Department of State for an individual’s refugee application file from the Worldwide Refugee Admissions Processing System, an electronic refugee-resettlement case-management system maintained and owned by the Department of State.

The Department of State released all non-exempt portions of the records sought from USCIS and the Department of State. USCIS therefore moved to dismiss the complaint for lack of jurisdiction, arguing that the lawsuit was moot because the requested records had already been provided by another agency. The organization opposed that motion and filed a motion for summary judgment seeking a declaration that the records were USCIS “agency records” under the Freedom of Information Act.

Requests Before the Court

USCIS asked the court to stay, or pause, its deadline to respond to the organization’s summary-judgment motion until the court decided the motion to dismiss. USCIS argued that the jurisdiction question was a threshold issue and that resolving it first would avoid unnecessary work. USCIS also argued that the organization could not challenge the Department of State’s withholdings in a case against USCIS because the Department of State was not named as a defendant.

The organization opposed the stay. USCIS stated that the organization argued the case was not moot because the court should not follow decisions from another federal appellate court, the Department of State had withheld some records, and USCIS’s alleged practice of refusing to search the system could harm the organization in the future.

Alternatively, USCIS requested a three-week extension to respond to the summary-judgment motion, citing the need to address 97 factual assertions and other deadlines in its attorney’s pending cases.

Ruling

Judge Robert W. Lehrburger denied USCIS’s request for a stay, stating that the request came “far too late.” The court granted in part and denied in part USCIS’s request for an extension of time. USCIS’s responsive papers were due April 7, 2021, and the organization’s reply was due April 2, 2021.

This order did not decide USCIS’s motion to dismiss or the organization’s summary-judgment motion. It also did not decide whether the requested records were USCIS agency records, whether the lawsuit was moot, or whether any agency improperly withheld records.