Lawsuit says HUD, DHS are ducking FOIA requests on their data-sharing

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is facing a new lawsuit over allegations that it’s holding back public documents that detail the data it shares with other agencies for immigration enforcement.

In a complaint filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the National Housing Law Project said it has “exhausted” all “administrative remedies” to obtain memos and communications between HUD, the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

NHLP, a nonprofit that advocates for housing rights in underserved communities, filed multiple Freedom of Information Act requests regarding the “sensitive data” HUD has shared with DHS and USCIS.

The organization was specifically interested in information exchanged about recipients of federal housing benefits and their families. HUD proposed a rule late last year to require the uploading of all Section 8 and Section 9 housing tenant files to DHS’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database. Some groups have flagged data and technical issues with the platform.

Democracy Forward, which is representing NHLP in the case, said in a press release that the rule “could result in the denial or termination of housing assistance, placing thousands of families at risk of losing assistance and potentially facing eviction or family separation.”

A HUD spokesperson said in an email that “the purpose of SAVE verification is to remove ineligible recipients from benefit rolls and make housing benefits available for the eligible waitlisted individuals. Regarding implementation of this initiative, HUD is following all relevant laws and is committed to transparency.”

The complaint, meanwhile, laid out months of FOIA requests made by NHLP, all followed by denials or nonresponses from HUD, DHS and USCIS. According to Democracy Forward, the agencies “have not produced any documents as required by law, necessitating the request for judicial intervention.”

The pattern of ducking FOIA requests violates federal law on public information, the lawsuit alleges. NHLP asked the court to order the agencies to conduct searches for the FOIA requests and grant its request for expedited processing.

“It should not take litigation to force the Trump administration to follow the law and provide basic recordkeeping,” NHLP CEO Shamus Roller said in the press release. President Donald “Trump’s HUD, DHS, and USCIS, like any other presidential administration, must provide the requested information in the timeframe required by law. We’ll keep fighting until we get the information.”