FOIA Requests
Katie
if you could answer a few questions for me. I mailed my request to my
local INS office about 6 weeks ago and haven't gotten so much as a
receipt.
Does the local office usually send receipts for FOIA requests?
Approximately how long does it take to respond to a request?
The last action on the case was approximately 3 years ago.
Thanks for the help.
Ronald Austin
The local INS Office MAY have forwarded your request to Headquarters. In any
event, here is info for the INS FOIA contact:
Immigration and Naturalization Service -- Processing of Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS) FOIA/PA record requests is decentralized, so
requests should be directed to the INS field office nearest your place of
residence. If you do not know which office has the records you seek, direct
your written or telephone request for the respective INS field office
address to:
Magda Ortiz, Director
Freedom of Information Act/Privacy Act Program
Immigration and Naturalization Service
2nd floor, 425 Eye Street, N.W.
Department of Justice
Washington, DC 20536
(202) 514-1722
Good Luck!
Ron
"Katie" <kati...@Hotmail.com> wrote in message
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Ronald Austin
Ron
"Ronald Austin" <ronau...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
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Matthew Udall
Originally posted by Katie:
Katie, if your "A" file is still at your local INS office, they should
process your FOIA request. If your "A" file has instead been transferred
to the National Records Center in Lees Summit, MO., then your FOIA
request should be forwarded to that facility, and the NRC will process
your FOIA request.
I was just at the NRC on 09/23, taking a tour of the facility. My
tour guide happened to be the senior officer in charge of FOIA
requests at the NRC (FOIA'S make up a pretty big part of the work
that goes on at the NRC).
Along the tour, we stopped by a paralegal at her cubicle, processing a
FOIA request. The paralegal had a large computer screen (split screen).
She would call up each page from the file (that had already been scanned
into the system by contract workers) and "read" each and every bit of
information on each and every page. She would then have to determine if
a section of text had to be obliterated from the FOIA reply for various
reasons. When she determined something had to be obliterated, she would
target the appropriate text, and on the other side of the split screen,
the list of possible reasons for the obliteration would come up. She
selects the appropriate reason, and that reason will then automatically
be listed on the FOIA reply for each dedaction. The FOIA reply is then
printed and mailed.
One of the attorneys asked if they would ever consider sending us our
FOIA replies via e-mail. They said they would love to someday do this,
but its not that day yet. It would be great if they would do this, as
quite often we only need 1 page from a file, and printing the entire
file is a huge waste of paper. The director of the NRC (who happened to
be on the tour with us) said he feels bad about the amount of paper used
by the NRC (I believe he made a comment, wondering how many trees are
lost due just to FOIA’S at the NRC), and that the cost of paper takes up
about ½ of the NRC’S annual budget.
The senior FOIA officer (giving the tour) gave me her card with direct
phone and e-mail information in case I need to contact her someday in
the future, although I doubt I'll ever need to do so.
They don't issue (this goes for the local INS offices too) "receipts" as
you would normally think of a receipt, however they do send a letter
saying they received your FOIA request. The letter also tells you that
the FOIA reply is free, up to a certain amount of pages (think its 250),
and that they can charge you $25.00 if it goes over that amount.
The FOIA requests are usually pretty quick, however my thoughts about
what is pretty quick might be different than yours.
Good luck with your case.
Regards,
Matthew Udall
Attorney
http://members.aol.com/MDUdall/fiancee.htm
--
Posted via http://britishexpats.com
Folinskyinla
Originally posted by Katie:
Hi:
The FOIA responses go all over the place:
Several sample timelines:
On a file which was supposed to be active in Los Angeles:
FOIA recieved 10/24/2001 in LOS
3-19-02 LOS sends letter that file is in MO on Space Center Loop [I just
LOVE that street name].
3-28-02 MO acknowledges reciept of request on that date.
4-18-02 Complete copy of file sent out -- which included the stuff which
was supposed to be active in LOS. Also, my client had been accused of
visa fraud -- the file showed no less than six instances of lieing --
none by my English client, the remainder by a Consular Officer in London
and later the INS.
On another case we filed at CSC in June, which promptly informed us that
the file was in MO, which promtly informed us that the file was in CSC,
which promptly informed us that the file was in San Francisco which
promptly informed us that they had the file and one week later informed
us that the file could not be located and we could consider this to be
an adverse decision -- total time 3 months 1 week. Notice I never did
get the file.
--
Certified Specialist, Immigration & Nat. Law, Cal. Bar Board of Legal Specialization
Posted via http://britishexpats.com
Katie
Matthew Udall
Originally posted by Folinskyinla:
> Hi:
> The FOIA responses go all over the place:
>
>
Folinskyinla, your FOIA story reminds me of a FOIA story for a VAWA case
I'm processing through the L.A. INS office.
International K-1 fiancée enters and gets married. She files AOS in
Florida (as that is where she lives), I believe at the Jacksonville
INS office (don't have file in front of me). After marriage ends due
to physical abuse, she comes to Cal. and contacts me. We prepare and
file bare bones VAWA submission at VSC to get it on file before
divorce is final.
I need copies of various things in the AOS file, as hubby is not going
to give them to us. So I send in FOIA to Jacksonville. Get reply that
file transferred to Miami, so foia request will be transferred there to.
Miami says file transferred to TSC. TSC says they did have it for a
couple of weeks, but they transferred it back to Miami. Miami says they
transferred it back to Jacksonville. Jacksonville forwards file to VSC
as they know my VAWA application is there.
This was at a time before the new National Records Center came on-line,
and as you can see by the trouble I had in tracking down one little "A"
file, the NRC "hub in the center of the wheel" concept is actually a
pretty good one :-).
I did eventually get the FOIA reply back, which contained the
information I needed for my VSC/VAWA RFE (which I know I would get as I
quickly submitted a bare bones VAWA to get it on file before the divorce
decree), and her VAWA case was approved at the VSC. The VSC has given us
EAD's twice now, and they transferred the file to L.A. where it sits in
the Continuation Unit.
But we did just get a fingerprinting appointment notice for her, so I
assume there is life in the Continuation Unit after all!
Folinskyinla, did you read the AILA notice about the retirement of
Thomas Shiltgen as the Director of the L.A. INS office? We are losing a
great Director and I'm sad to see him go. When he took over the L.A. INS
office, around September 1999, he really whipped it into shape. Before
he came to L.A., they were taking around 3 years between AOS filing and
interview, and now its under 1 year. He had been transferred to L.A.
from his position as the Director of the San Francisco INS office (which
was also the model of efficiency).
I remember the date he came to L.A. as he moved down here right about
the same time as my wife Lisa and I moved from San Francisco to Pasadena
(the L.A. area). Again, I'm sorry to see him go. He seems a little young
for general retirement, so maybe he's just moving to clean house at a
different INS office.