Berkeley professor seeks expedited release of ICE data

OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) —  A federal judge questioned Thursday why a law professor needs expedited access to years of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement data as he builds a project tracking immigration and detention trends.

University of California, Berkeley law professor David Hausman sued ICE in April after the agency failed to respond to multiple Freedom of Information Act requests seeking spreadsheets containing data on detainees, enforcement actions and other immigration records.

At a hearing Thursday on Hausman’s request for a preliminary injunction compelling ICE to release the records, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín said he is likely to succeed on the merits of his case and has shown harm. But she questioned whether the need for records that are years old justified emergency relief.

“I’m having issues with the imminence of the harm when asking for data that is over a decade old,” the Joe Biden appointee said.

Hausman’s attorney, Amber Qureshi, said the injunction should require ICE to release all previously requested records within eight days, produce records responsive to future requests within 28 days and submit quarterly compliance reports..

Qureshi argued that timely access to the data is necessary because researchers, journalists and the public need to compare current enforcement practices with historical trends. An example she provided compared this year’s out-of-state detention transfer rate to previous years.

Any delay in releasing records would leave the public “in the dark,” Qureshi explained.

“If it has to wait to the conclusion of litigation, the information would lose value and become stale,” she said.

In recent years, several news agencies and human rights nonprofits requested ICE data in order to report more accurately or to better understand deportation policy. Hausman seeks information as part of the Deportation Data Project, a long-term enterprise that analyzes ICE data across time periods and enforcement strategies.

Justice Department attorney Nag Young Chu argued the injunction should be denied because the request is too broad. He said the parties disagree over ICE’s use of frequently changing anonymized identifiers, making it difficult to track individuals across datasets.

Qureshi said the court could shorten the time period covered by the requested records, but Martínez-Olguín pushed.

“It’s not the court’s job to fashion the remedy when you asked for one thing,” she said.

The judge encouraged the parties to meet and confer on a narrower resolution, potentially with the assistance of a magistrate judge, or submit supplemental briefing before she takes the matter under submission.