Judge Richard Berman
Under a 2009 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sought documents about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) procedures for reviewing the status of aliens detained pending removal in order to determine if such detention is justified, and complies with regulatory, statutory and constitutional limits including those established by the Supreme Court in Zadvydas v. Davis. District court denied the government’s motion to stay appeal of its Sept. 9, 2013, order to produce the documents. Issuance of a stay would substantially injure the ACLU, detainees and their families. Discussing the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling in Nat’l Assoc. of Retired Federal Employees v. Horner, the court rejected the government’s “convoluted” argument that it attempted to apply a data aggregation theory to protect private information. Nor did the government balance the privacy interests at stake and the public interest in disclosure. The public interest favored immediate disclosure of the documents sought by the ACLU. The court also determined that the government would not be irreparably injured absent a stay.
