Ghinis v. USCIS, No. 21-554, 2023 WL 2598846 (M.D. Fla. Mar. 22, 2023) (Antoon, J.)

Ghinis v. USCIS, No. 21-554, 2023 WL 2598846 (M.D. Fla. Mar. 22, 2023) (Antoon, J.)

Re:  Request for records concerning plaintiff

Disposition:  Denying defendant’s motion for summary judgment; denying plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment

Litigation Considerations, Adequacy of Search:  The court finds that “[defendant’s] declaration . . . is neither ‘relatively detailed’ nor ‘nonconclusory,’ and thus it does not carry the day for USCIS.”  The court relates that “[a]ccording to [defendant]:  ‘. . . staff ran computerized database searches in the [two] databases using the information supplied by the Plaintiffs [sic] with their FOIA request.’”  “[Defendant was] unable to locate [plaintiff’s] A-[F]ile using his name and A number provided.”  “The system showed a notation that the file was lost . . . .”  The court relates that plaintiff provided “a two-page document . . . that was provided to him by USCIS in a prior FOIA response and a letter dated June 17, 1987, written by his father.”  “[Plaintiff] characterizes the [two-page document] ‘as reflecting that the . . . A-File “was last seen at the USCIS Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Field Office”’ . . . .”  “And in the 1987 letter – which [plaintiff] characterizes as ‘in [USCIS]’s possession,’ . . . – [plaintiff’s] father stated, ‘[t]o whom it may concern’:  ‘The certificate of Naturalization of my son, . . . were [sic] left in my safe deposit box at the National Security Bank, Brumwick Ave In Trenton[,] N.J. in 1962.’”  “‘According to the bank, they were mailed to the immigration & Naturalization office in Newark, N.J.’”  In light of this information, the court finds that “although ‘[t]here is no requirement that an agency search every record system,’ USCIS, ‘at the very least, . . . was required to explain in its affidavit [why] no other record system was likely to produce responsive documents,’ . . . especially once [plaintiff] presented documents giving reason to believe that the file could be at one or two field offices that the agency did not search.”