USCIS Pushing Online FOIA Requests Hard
The Freedom of Information Act 5 U.S.C. § 552, is the United States’ federal law that requires the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased or uncirculated information and documents controlled by the U.S. Federal Government upon request [full text of 5 U.S.C.§552]. The act defines agency records subject to disclosure, outlines mandatory disclosure procedures, and includes nine exemptions that define categories of information not subject to disclosure. The act was intended to make U.S. government agencies’ functions more transparent so that the American public could more easily identify problems in government functioning and put pressure on Congress, agency officials, and the president to address them. The FOIA has been changed repeatedly by both the legislative and executive branches. In the context of immigration law FOIA requests are a powerful and commonly used tool since it allows for immigrants to get a copy of their immigration file and the records the government has on them. This is done sometimes because immigrants lost documents or they had a lawyer that never gave them the documents, or sometimes to see if there are records of them being stopped years ago, and if so, to find out what exactly happened during that prior encounter with immigration since often the immigrant will not have any idea what was happening since everyone was speaking English at the time. They are also an important tool for journalists to be able to obtain information and proof for stories about the government. News organizations often use FOIA for reporting purposes, but such requests still only make up less than 10% of all FOIA requests. For more information about the Freedom of Information Act or to learn how to file a FOIA request see our FOIA page or our How-To FOIA Guide. USCIS’ EMAIL RESPONSE TO REQUESTS SENT BY MAIL If you submit a FOIA request by regular mail, which is still an option despite USCIS hiding all information about how to do so on their website, then USCIS send the following email once they receive the request sent by mail (copied and pasted from my email including the typo in USCIS’ automated email):