Grey v. Alfonso-Royals, No. 23-1910, 2025 WL 1634792 (4th Cir. June 10, 2025) (Rushing, J.)

Grey v. Alfonso-Royals, No. 23-1910, 2025 WL 1634792 (4th Cir. June 10, 2025) (Rushing, J.)

Re: Request for records concerning [the requester’s] immigration file and documents related to agency’s methods and practices for investigating marriage fraud

Disposition:  Affirming district court’s grant in part of government’s motion for summary judgment

• Exemption 7(E): The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit observes that “[the requester] challenges the district court’s conclusion that USCIS was entitled to redact or withhold certain training materials under FOIA’s law enforcement exemption at 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(E).” “[The requester] contends the redacted materials are not exempt from disclosure for three reasons.”  “First, [the requester] asserts that, to be ‘compiled for law enforcement purposes,’ records must originate from or be used in a law enforcement investigation, not officer training.”  “[The court] disagree[s].”  “The exemption is not limited to records compiled for law enforcement proceedings; it extends more broadly to records compiled for law enforcement purposes.”  “Training officers how to enforce the law is a ‘law enforcement purpose.’”  “Second, [the requester] argues the materials in question do not fall within Exemption 7(E) because USCIS’s techniques and procedures are not secret.”  “[A]ccording to [the requester], USCIS’s publicly available policy manual identifies all the techniques and procedures the agency uses to identify fraud, including interviews, site visits, database searches, and open source searches.” “But ‘even for well-known techniques or procedures, Exemption 7(E) protects information that would reveal facts about such techniques or their usefulness that are not generally known to the public,’ including details of their use or execution, ‘as well as other information when disclosure could reduce the effectiveness of such techniques.’” “[The requester] acknowledges that the redacted training materials ‘may elaborate on’ USCIS’s techniques and procedures for uncovering fraud, and he is simply incorrect that Exemption 7(E) does not apply ‘to the details of well-known techniques and procedures’ if those details are not themselves generally known.”  “Third, [the requester] claims that disclosure of USCIS’s investigatory techniques and procedures cannot ‘reasonably be expected to risk circumvention of the law.’”  “His argument fails because the ‘circumvention’ requirement does not apply to ‘techniques and procedures.’”  “Accordingly, we join our sister circuits in holding that Exemption 7(E) protects information that would disclose law enforcement techniques and procedures without requiring the government to show that disclosure can reasonably be expected to risk circumvention of the law.”  “Because the parties agree the redacted and withheld information here concerns USCIS techniques and procedures, not guidelines, the agency was not required to make such a showing and [the requester’s] final challenge to the district court’s FOIA ruling fails.”
   
• Litigation Considerations, Mootness and Other Grounds for Dismissal:  The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit relates that “[the requester] has also appealed the district court’s decision sealing the inadvertently unredacted FOIA materials and imposing a protective order pending the court’s decision on USCIS’s FOIA compliance.”  “[The court] need not evaluate the merits of that provisional order because it was superseded by the district court’s FOIA ruling a few months later.”  “A decision from this Court about the lawfulness of that initial order would in no way change [the requester’s] (or the public’s) access to the contested documents.”  “[The requester] challenges only the continued nondisclosure and protection of the inadvertently unredacted documents.”  “But by its own terms, the sealing and protective order was no longer operative after the district court resolved [the requester’s] FOIA claim on the merits.”  “Accordingly, the sealing and protective order no longer has any force or effect.” “[The requester’s] appeal of that order is rather like a litigant appealing a preliminary injunction after a permanent injunction has issued.”  “Much like the subsequent entry of a permanent injunction generally moots a challenge to the preliminary order, the district court’s order granting summary judgment to USCIS on [the requester’s] FOIA claim moots his challenge to the provisional sealing and protection of those documents.”  “Because [the requester’s] appeal of the sealing and protective order is moot, we must decline to address it.”