Sabra v. CBP, No. 23-5069, 2024 WL 5182911 (D.C. Cir. Dec. 20, 2024) (per curiam)

Sabra v. CBP, No. 23-5069, 2024 WL 5182911 (D.C. Cir. Dec. 20, 2024) (per curiam)

Re:  Request for records concerning requester’s encounter with CBP officials and CBP’s subsequent investigation of requester’s misconduct complaint against those CBP officials

Disposition:  Affirming district court’s grant of government’s renewed motion for summary judgment and denial of requester’s motion or judgment on the pleadings

• Litigation Considerations, Mootness and Other Grounds for Dismissal:  The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit holds that “the district court’s denial of judgment on the pleadings was proper.”  “At the time the district court heard [the requester’s] motion for judgment on the pleadings, CBP was in the process of completing [the requester’s] request.”  “Shortly thereafter, CBP made its first production of responsive records.”  “When the district court ruled on [the requester’s] motion for judgment on the pleadings, CBP had already produced responsive records and therefore [the requester’s] motion was moot.”
   

• Procedural Requirements, Searching for Responsive Records: The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit holds that “the district court did not err in concluding that CBP conducted an adequate search in response to [the requester’s] FOIA request.”  First, responding to plaintiff’s argument concerning improper search terms, the court finds that “[t]hree terms used by CBP, . . . are iterations of [the requester’s] full name . . . .”  “The three other terms, variations on ‘Syria,’ captured documents that referred to the family that traveled with [the requester] during the encounter at the port-of-entry.”  “[The requester] did not adequately explain why the terms employed by CBP were unreasonable and would not produce responsive records.”  “Nor did [the requester] clarify why using the investigation case number as a search term would have returned additional responsive documents.”  Responding to the requester’s claim of overlooked materials, the court finds that “[the requester’s] claim is speculative, as the [email at issue] provided no clear indication that [one] inbox contained additional responsive records.” The court also relates that “[the requester] alleges that CBP failed to search all potentially responsive records, because it did not search [Office of Internal Affairs (“OIA”)] records.”  “[The requester] ignores that CBP did search the records of OIA’s successor agency, the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR).”  “Citing CBP’s website, the district court’s order properly took judicial notice of the fact that OIA’s name had changed to OPR.”

  Finally, the court relates that “[a]ccording to [the requester], DHS should have forwarded her FOIA request to the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and the Office of the Inspector General, because DHS regulations require components to reroute misdirected FOIA requests to the proper components.”  The court observes that “[the requester’s] request was not misdirected as CBP produced at least some records responsive to [the requester’s] request.”