All Posts in #Freedom of Information Act
Asylum Grant Rates Increase Under Biden Administration
Under the new Biden administration, asylum seekers are seeing greater success rates in securing asylum. While the percent of immigrants who were denied asylum went up each year during the Trump administration to a high of 71 percent in FY…
Sharp Drop in Asylum Seekers Allowed Into Country Under MPP, TRAC’s Data Show
A new report from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a research center at Syracuse University, shows that the number of immigrants whose cases transferred out of the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) dropped sharply in May. 4,476 MPP cases had been…
Immigration Law Professors Rely on TRAC’s Data to Call on Biden Administration to Reduce Immigration Court Backlog
A group of law professors are calling on Attorney General Merrick Garland to reduce the immigration court backlog which, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University, currently stands at over 1.3 million cases. The letter [PDF] explains…
“Border apprehensions, drought impacts, COVID vaccine demand.”
Research from the Transactional Research Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) was cited the NPR piece “Border apprehensions, drought impacts, COVID vaccine demand.” TRAC, which conducts research on immigration in the U.S. using records from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, found that…
Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied
The news media are powerful players in the world of government transparency and public accountability. One important tool for ensuring public accountability is through invoking transparency mandates provided by the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In 2020, news organizations and…
The State of the Immigration Courts
Immigrant rights activists energized by a new Democratic administration and majorities on Capitol Hill are gearing up for a fresh political battle. A coalition of national advocacy groups announced a new campaign to help push through President Biden’s plan to open…
‘When FOIA Goes to Court: 20 Years of Freedom of Information Act Litigation by News Organizations and Reporters’
In 2020, news organizations and individual reporters filed 122 different Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits to compel disclosure of federal government records. A new report by the FOIA Project, which aims to provide the public with timely and complete…