In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 19-2088 NATIONAL IMMIGRANT JUSTICE CENTER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Defendant-Appellee. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 1:12-cv-4691 — Andrea R. Wood, Judge. ____________________ ARGUED FEBRUARY 14, 2020 — DECIDED MARCH 23, 2020 ____________________ Before RIPPLE, SYKES, and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge. Receiving confidential advice is es- sential to sound decision-making. The law of privilege owes its existence to that reality and finds application in many set- tings, including decision-making within the executive branch of our national government. Consider the setting front and center in this appeal—immigration. Congress has empow- ered the Attorney General with enforcement, rulemaking, and adjudicatory authority. The exercise of that power is of great 2 No. 19-2088 consequence on many fronts, including in the direction of the nation’s immigration policy and the lives of many noncitizen immigrants. Those very same reasons explain why the Attor- ney General, as part of exercising the responsibility conferred by Congress, will seek and receive confidential input from a range of advisors within the Department of Justice. Unsettled by decisions made by Attorneys General across three presidential administrations, the National Immigrant Justice Center invoked the Freedom of Information Act and sought access to all records of communications to and from the Attorney General in certain immigration appeals certified for executive decision. The Department of Justice honored as- pects of the requests but withheld many responsive docu- ments on the basis of FOIA’s exemption for communications protected by the deliberative process privilege. The district court found the withholding proper, and so do we. To con- clude otherwise would chill the deliberations that department and agency heads like the Attorney General undertake in con- fidence to execute the weighty responsibilities of their offices. I A The National Immigrant Justice Center provides immigra- tion legal services for low-income noncitizens. To advance its mission, NIJC lodged a FOIA request with the Department of Justice for communications related to the Attorney General’s decisions in certain immigration appeals. Some background on immigration removal proceedings and the Attorney Gen- eral’s role in them puts in context NIJC’s request and our en- suing analysis. No. 19-2088 3 When the government believes that a noncitizen is in the United States without permission, the Department of Homeland Security may initiate removal proceedings in immigration court. The immigration court is not an Article III federal court, but instead resides within the executive branch—specifically, within the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review. See 8 C.F.R. § 1003.14. Either party can appeal an immigration judge’s removal decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals or BIA. See id. § 1003.38. The BIA likewise resides within DOJ. See id. DHS attorneys are tasked with defending and pursuing appeals before the BIA. As the head of DOJ, the Attorney General has discretion- ary authority to review any BIA decision. See 8 C.F.R. § 1003.1(h). This review happens ...
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Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals