Colorado judge rules ICE violated law by withholding records

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials violated federal law by refusing to release documents about people who aren’t citizens because the agency deemed those people to be fugitives, a Colorado federal court ruled in December.

ICE must change its nationwide standard operating procedure — used at least 333 times to deny the release of records between July 2017 and April 2019 — and comply with the Freedom of Information Act, the judge declared in a 44-page ruling.

“ICE invented a reason for nondisclosure that isn’t found anywhere in the FOIA statute,” Mark Silverstein, legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, said in a statement issued Wednesday.

“Thanks to the court’s ruling, ICE will no longer be able to impede immigration attorneys from advocating for their clients by refusing to disclose documents they are entitled to by law.”

The case started in 2013 in Glenwood Springs when an attorney there requested documents from ICE about her client and the agency refused to release them because the attorney’s client was deemed to be a fugitive. ICE thought releasing the documents could aid the client in evading immigration enforcement.

Attorney Jennifer Smith believed that was not a lawful reason to withhold documents under the Freedom of Information Act, and when she received the agency’s denial about two years after she had filed the request, she appealed and then filed a lawsuit in 2016.

ICE abruptly gave Smith the records she had requested shortly after she filed the lawsuit, but she and the ACLU continued with the legal case in order to challenge ICE’s broader policy and practice.