Avila v. U.S. Department Of State

2022 WL 2104483 (2022)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

P is a United States citizen and a retired Special Agent for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). P was assigned to the ICE Attaché office at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, Mexico. P and ICE Special Agent Jaime Zapata were on duty transporting equipment to Mexico City when they were ambushed by members of a Mexican cartel. The cartel members chased the agents by car, forced them off the highway, and fired nearly 100 bullets at their vehicle, killing Agent Zapata and seriously wounding P. P requested various FOIA documents from ICE and DHS with little success. P turned to D and submitted a FOIA/Privacy Act request to the State Department seeking 'records concerning Victor Avila, Jr.' The time frame of this request was from January 1, 2011, to the present. D stated that it had received the request and then ignored Ps. Ps brought suit on December 15, 2017. By April 2018, D began making rolling productions to Ps. On June 27, 2018, D reached out to P to see if they would be willing to narrow the search. Ps agreed to exclude extradition-related documents from the request but did not agree to narrow custodians or timeframe. The Court encouraged the parties to talk to each other and attempt to resolve disputes without the Court's intervention. Ps agreed that all news clips and statements made by P could be excluded from the search. D completed its search in April 2021 and located 138 responsive documents. It released 22 documents in full and 85 documents in part. It withheld 30 documents in full; and referred one document to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) for direct reply. D consulted the FBI and the DEA for their views on a portion of responsive documents and implemented the FBI and DEA's withholding recommendations. D submitted a Vaughn index explaining the basis for its withholdings, including the ones it implemented on behalf of the FBI and DEA. The FBI and DEA also submitted their own declarations and Vaughn indexes. Both parties moved for summary judgment.