Judicial Watch Files FOIA Lawsuit for Refugee Documents

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced that it filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking records between the U.S. Department of State and voluntary agencies regarding refugees arriving in the United States (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No 1:15-cv-02030)).

The lawsuit was filed after the State Department failed to respond to two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests submitted on May 22, 2015, and September 14, 2015.

The FOIA request submitted on May 22, 2015, seeks records of:

All Cooperation Agreements for the years 2014 and 2015 between the Department of State and the voluntary agencies involved in providing reception and placement services to refugees arriving in the United States.
All Reception and Placement abstracts for the years 2014 and 2015 furnished to the Department of State by voluntary agencies, entities subcontracting to voluntary agencies, or entities affiliated with voluntary agencies regarding the provision of reception and placement services to refugees arriving in the United States.
All transcripts of hearings held in 2014 and 2015 by the Department of State with representatives from voluntary agencies, entities subcontracting to voluntary agencies, entities affiliated with voluntary agencies, the Department of Health and Human Services, and/or the Office of Refugee Settlement regarding the provision of reception and placement services to refugees arriving in the United States.
All comments submitted to the State Department by members of the public at the hearings identified in Bullet 3 above.

All records reflecting the number of refugees, their countries of origin, and destinations in the United States in which they were settled by the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM) through R&P programs for the years 2013, 2014, and 2015.

The second FOIA request, submitted September 14, 2015, seeks records of: