Hawkinson v. EOIR, No. 21-11817, 2023 WL 5153768 (D. Mass. Aug. 10, 2023) (Kelley, Mag. J.)

Hawkinson v. EOIR, No. 21-11817, 2023 WL 5153768 (D. Mass. Aug. 10, 2023) (Kelley, Mag. J.)

Re:  Request for certain Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) decisions

Disposition:  Granting defendant’s motion for summary judgment

• Litigation Considerations, Adequacy of Search & Procedural Requirements, Searching for Responsive Records:  The court holds that “defendant has complied with its obligations under FOIA.”  The court notes that, “[a]ccording to the declarations, the BIA Decisions Search Application is the only database where documents responsive to the search parameters plaintiff provided could be found via a key term search.”  “[Defendant] clearly explain[s] why the BIA Decisions Search Application was the best source to find responsive documents and why [another location suggested by plaintiff] was not.”  “By detailing the databases reasonably likely to contain responsive information and its reasons for searching [them] . . . , the ‘declaration[s] provided a reasonable explanation for the agency’s process,’ creating a presumption that defendant acted in good faith.”  The court relates that, in rebuttal, “[e]ssentially, plaintiff argues that, by failing to follow the instructions in his FOIA request, defendant did not conduct its search in good faith.”  The court finds that “[a]n agency cannot ignore a FOIA requester’s directions to search a specific database provided that the requester has a basis to believe it will contain responsive documents.”  “Yet there is no obligation to follow each and every instruction a requester provides.”  In response to plaintiff’s argument that “defendant could search the BIA Shared Drive by indexing it or using an automated search tool,” the court finds that “Plaintiff asks defendant to create an index rather than merely sort data, a task that he concedes could take anywhere from several hours to several days on a dedicated computer.”  “[S]uch an operation goes far beyond simply sorting files by properties such as date or title.”  “Indexing would require a computer to log every single word in millions of documents, creating a new and separate file.”  “Courts have repeatedly found that agencies are excused from creating files or database indices for FOIA requesters.”  Additionally, in response to plaintiff’s “[suggestion of] purchasing an external hard drive, copying the BIA Shared Drive onto that external hard drive, then sending it to an e-discovery vendor, the court finds that, “[s]etting aside the difficulties of copying the BIA Shared Drive’s large quantity of files as [defendant] described in his declaration, doing so, by very definition, would require defendant to create a new file, which – as discussed above – agencies are not required to do in order to comply with FOIA.”