The federal government’s right to not release names of former non-citizen detainees was affirmed by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals today.
Judge Stephen Reinhardt’s opinion for a unanimous three-judge panel held immigrants’ privacy interests outweighed the public’s interest in disclosure. The case, Tuffly v. Department of Homeland Security, was filed two years ago by the treasurer of the union for Border Patrol agents.
Tuffly filed a Freedom of Information Act request in 2014 for the names of 149 people released the prior year from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody because he wanted to “shed light on the risk to the public posed by the detainees’ release.” Citing a Cato Institute study, the court noted “the rate of criminal convictions is lower among the released detainees than among adult Americans in general” and thus found the public’s interest in disclosure to be minimal.
Ironically, the Trump Administration’s own stigmatization of immigrants helped the government win the appeal. The court stated: “Despite the evidence showing that undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than citizens, the government has recently opened a new office dedicated to crimes allegedly committed by undocumented immigrants.”
Reinhardt listed threats to those identified as undocumented immigrants “in this era,” including “the potential for stigma, harassment, discrimination, illegal detention, and even violence,” and said the plaintiff’s asserted basis for release of the names actually undermined his case by helping to show the former detainees had strong interests in protecting their privacy. “Tuffly’s willingness to label as dangerous criminal aliens people who have never even been charged with a crime, people who have been charged but not convicted, and people who have been convicted only of traffic offenses or other minor crimes vividly illustrates the risks to these individuals’ privacy if their names are disclosed,” he wrote.
The union had an antagonistic relationship with the Obama Administration and endorsed Donald Trump for president in 2016. Tuffly is represented by Judicial Watch.
The case was argued June 5 before Reinhardt, 9th Circuit Chief Judge Sidney Thomas and Judge Edward Korman, a district court judge in New York temporarily assigned to the 9th Circuit. The 9th Circuit’s decision today affirmed the ruling of Judge Roslyn O. Silver in Arizona, where the case originated.