Immigration Enforcement Advocate Files FOIA Requests for Records about Last Year’s Crisis involving

January 23, 2015

Understanding the constraints on agency resources resulting from Obama’s amnesty policies

(Washington, D.C.) – On behalf of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) today asked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to make public records pertaining to the fiscal costs and management of the crisis involving Unaccompanied Alien Minors (UAM) that was induced last year by the implicit promise of amnesty on the part of the Obama Administration.

IRLI filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for a range of government records, including, but not limited to, those relating to the fiscal costs of the apprehension, processing and detention of UAM, the transport, removal and repatriation of UAM, the placement, housing of and medical care for UAM, and the building of family detention centers during the crisis period. Further, IRLI requested records of the number of instances UAM were reunited with parents and legal guardians residing in the U.S., the fiscal costs of associated background investigations, and the number of instances where objections to their return were raised by the governments of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

IRLI’s Executive Director, Dale Wilcox, commented, “The information requested will significantly contribute to public understanding of the operations and activities of government, especially the financial constraints placed on our federal agencies as a result of the Obama Administration’s self-inflicted UAM crisis.”

IRLI’s requests are addressed to DHS’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, and DHHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement.