As U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents rounded up dozens of families awaiting asylum in predawn New Year raids in 2016, they often gained entry by claiming they had criminal warrants.

But when attorneys with the Southern Poverty Law Center sought what should have been publicly available warrants and other information on the raids in Georgia, Texas and North Carolina, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and ICE refused to turn them over, prompting the SPLC to sue.