Heartland Alliance National Immigrant Justice Center v. Department of Homeland Security

Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center submitted to the Department of Homeland Security a Freedom of Information Act request for information relating to Tier III terrorist organizations. Membership in any tier makes a person inadmissible to the United States, with narrow exceptions. Tier I and Tier II organizations are publicly identified terrorist groups such as ISIS and al‐Qaeda. Tier III organizations are defined in 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(3)(B)(vi)(III) as any group that engages in terrorist activity (defined in 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(3)(B)(iv)), even if the activity is conducted exclusively against regimes that are enemies of the United States. The government typically does not have good intelligence about Tier III organizations. The Department provided only some of the requested information. The Center filed suit. The district judge granted, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed, summary judgment for the government on the ground that the names of the Tier III organizations are protected from disclosure by the Freedom of Information Act’s exemption, 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(7)(E), for “records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes, but only to the extent that the production of such law enforcement records or information ... would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions, or would disclose guidelines for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions if such disclosure could reasonably be expected to risk circumvention of the law.” View "Heartland Alliance National Immigrant Justice Center v. Department of Homeland Security" on Justia Law