Criminal Alien Program (CAP)

Co-Plaintiffs American Immigration Council and AILA’s Connecticut chapter initially sought records related to the Criminal Alien Program (CAP) through a FOIA request to ICE in December 2011. When ICE refused to release responsive records, Plaintiffs filed suit under FOIA to compel their disclosure. — Defendant filed a motion for summary judgment with an accompanying declaration by Jamison Matuszewski, the Unit Chief for CAP within Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) at ICE. In response, Plaintiffs argued discovery was necessary in light of the Defendant’s conclusory and largely unsupported claim that DHS lacks the functional capacity “to identify the individuals encountered by CAP and retrieve their records” and to provide a small, randomized sample of individual records without undue burden. Plaintiffs requested discovery in the form of a deposition of Jamison Matuszewski. The court granted Plaintiffs’ request, and the deposition took place in February 2013. Soon afterward, the court found Defendant’s motion for summary judgment moot and ordered Defendant to re-file its motion for summary judgment upon completion of the extended discovery. — After settlement discussions, on July 21, 2013, the court entered a Stipulation and Order of Dismissal.  The parties agreed that ICE would produce certain non-exempt records described in the Settlement Agreement. ICE also agreed to produce an electronic report containing all CAP encounters in ICE’s Integrated Decision Support System (“IIDS”) for FY 2010 to the date of the Stipulation. ICE ultimately produced large quantities of data about the population of individuals caught up in the CAP enforcement web, which provided the basis for Enforcement Overdrive, the Council’s comprehensive assessment of CAP.