ICE shouldn’t be allowed to run de facto secret prisons

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

I’m Lauren Harper, the first Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy at Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), and welcome to “The Classifieds.” Read on to learn about this week’s top secrecy news.

ICE’s private detention facilities should be subject to FOIA

President Donald Trump’s signature budget legislation allocates Immigration and Customs Enforcement a staggering $45 billion to expand immigrant detention efforts. Much of this money will go towards tripling ICE’s for-profit detention facility network.

And even though these private facilities hold people in federal custody under federal law, they operate in secret and are not subject to the federal transparency law, the Freedom of Information Act.

This must change.

ICE is not the secret police, no matter how much it might like to be, and the agency should not be allowed to run de facto secret detention facilities.

A commonsense way to prevent an explosion of secret immigration detention facilities would be to make private prisons and detention centers subject to FOIA.

Legislators can start by reintroducing the Private Prison Information Act to fill this critical transparency gap. They should also expand it to include for-profit detainee transport companies, which often fly under the radar of private prison reform efforts.

Gabbard retaliating against FOIA officials

Tulsi Gabbard has reportedly fired a FOIA official who “facilitated” the release of a document to Freedom of the Press Foundation in response to a records request we filed in April. The document showed that most spy agencies overwhelmingly disagreed with the Trump administration’s rationale for deporting Venezuelan nationals to El Salvador.

It should go without saying that FOIA officers shouldn’t be fired for releasing information the administration wants to hide.

At its best, this is exactly what FOIA is intended to do: Allow the public to dictate what is shared, not the government.

And blatant retaliation like Gabbard’s has the potential to have a chilling effect on FOIA offices across the government.

FPF won’t let that happen without a fight. We have filed additional requests about the processing of our April FOIA request, and we will report what we learn about the spy agency’s attempt to stifle lawful disclosures.

(Unfortunately, Gabbard isn’t just going after FOIA officials. She appears to be trying to intimidate a veteran journalist from digging into her agency. We’re filing FOIA requests about this, too.)

Transparently yours,

Lauren Harper

Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy
Freedom of the Press Foundation