Just got some FOIA records back for a request I submitted in 2020 about the last denaturalization push. Crazy that we're once again talking about a mega-denaturalization effort. Here are the USCIS Director's emails from last time. cdn.muckrock.com/foia_files/2...
Most of these are media coordination. They include this background report. Note - we sued them over a series of similar records a few years ago, and this wasn't produced at the time (might be a date range issue). But it has some new information about Operation Janus and Operation Second Look.
The "Historical Fingerprint Enrollment Unit" was a denaturalization office opened within the Los Angeles USCIS Field Office by the first Trump admin. This report details how USCIS responded to the 2016 OIG report that first revealed Operation Janus and Operation Second Look.
So, several officials gave interviews last time saying that there were going to be "thousands" of denaturalization cases from these programs. That seems to have been false. This document says that there were only 1,029 Operation Janus cases where the person naturalized after a prior removal order.
What does it mean when a federal officer responds to your email and just writes "O"? I seriously don't know. I am not sure I have ever seen that before.
I was previously unaware of this meeting, but I'm now going to try to FOIA for materials from it. Should have them in about five years 🥲
The redactions are pretty heavy-handed, so I can't tell from most of these what's actually being said. But here's an exchange workshopping a response to reporter Seth Wexler.
"OK" with typo?
That office has had some history. It became the Benefits Integrity Office (BIO) then later added a "virtual" to it's name and became vBIO (it was structured to be a virtual field office). Switched to working deferred action and parole under Biden...just a tiny shift from trump1.0.