Complaint Against Department of Homeland Security Filed by MSW Media, INC.. (Attachments: # 1 Civil Cover Sheet, # 2 Summons, # 3 Summons, # 4 Summons)(McClanahan, Kelly)
1This Court has both subject matter jurisdiction over this action and personal jurisdiction over Defendant pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B) and 28 U.S.C. § 1331.
VENUE
2Venue is appropriate under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B) and 28 U.S.C. § 1391.
PARTIES
3Plaintiff MSW Media, Inc. (“MSW Media”) is a media business incorporated in the state of California and has the ability to disseminate information on a wide scale. MSW Media (https://mswmedia.com/) operates numerous podcasts and blogs about federal government operations, including Mueller She Wrote, SpyTalk, Daily Beans, and Unjustified. It will clearly use its editorial skills to translate disclosed records into new material. MSW Media is accordingly a representative of the news media within the meaning of 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(A).
4Defendant Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) is an agency within the meaning of 5 U.S.C. § 552(f)(1) and is in possession and/or control of the records requested by MSW Media which are the subject of this action.
5Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”), and the Office of General Counsel (“OGC”) are DHS components.
BACKGROUND
6Since the second inauguration of President Donald Trump, ICE and CBP have engaged in a campaign of mass deportation.
7As part of this campaign, ICE and CBP have engaged in highly controversial activities, many of which have drawn public condemnation and widespread media coverage.
8The requests in this lawsuit pertain to two such instances, about which MSW Media has requested information vitally important to the public discourse regarding ICE and CBP, including an ongoing appropriations battle over DHS funding currently being waged in the U.S. Congress.
Dilley Immigration Processing Center Holds Children and Families Incommunicado
9On 9 February 2026, ProPublica revealed “handwritten letters from children detained at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas.” Mica Rosenberg, Anna Donlan, Shoshana Gordon, & Cengiz Yar, “I Have Been Here Too Long”: Read Letters from the Children Detained at ICE’s Dilley Facility, ProPublica (Feb. 9, 2026), at https://www.propublica.org/article/ice-dilley-children-letters (last accessed Mar. 27, 2026).
10ProPublica received these letters from children in mid-January. In their words and drawings, they convey how much they ache for creature comforts and describe the anguish of being trapped. They write about missing their friends and teachers, falling behind at school, having unreliable access to medical care when they are sick, and feeling scared about what comes next.
11Reporter Mica Rosenberg asked detainees whether their children would be willing to write letters or draw pictures about their experiences. One detainee gathered the letters and brought them out of the center when they were released from Dilley on 20 January 2026. The detainee said the parents whose children participated were aware that the letters would be shared with a journalist with the intention of making them public.
12Three days later, during a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing, Rep. James Walkinshaw read some of the handwritten letters and shared drawings from the children held in ICE family detention and then questioned ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons (“Lyons”) about them.
13On 17 February 2026, Migrant Insider reported, “Staff at the ICE concentration camp in Dilley, Texas have begun raiding the dormitories of kids and their parents to confiscate and destroy letters from the children.” Pablo Manríquez (@PabloReports), X.com (Feb. 17, 2026 10:36 AM), at https://x.com/PabloReports/status/2023783585296064964 (last accessed Mar. 27, 2026).
14ICE contractor CoreCivic operates the Dilley Immigration Processing Center.
ICE Forcibly Enters Homes Without Judicial Warrants
15On 12 May 2025, Lyons issued a memo (“Lyons Memo”) authorizing ICE agents to forcibly enter certain homes without a warrant, consent, or an emergency. Rebecca Santana, Immigration officers assert sweeping power to enter homes without a judge’s warrant, memo says, Assoc. Press (Jan. 21, 2026), at https://apnews.com/article/ice-arrests-warrants- minneapolis-trump-00d0ab0338e82341fd91b160758aeb2d (last accessed Mar. 27, 2026).
16The Lyons Memo states, “Although the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has not historically relied on administrative warrants alone to arrest aliens subject to final orders of removal in their place of residence, the DHS Office of the General Counsel has recently determined that the U.S. Constitution, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and the immigration regulations do not prohibit relying on administrative warrants for this purpose.”
17The Lyons Memo itself has not been widely shared within the agency, but its contents have been used to train new ICE officers.
FIRST CAUSE OF ACTION (ICE – CONSTRUCTIVE EXPEDITED PROCESSING DENIAL)
18MSW Media repeats and realleges the allegations contained in paragraphs 1-17 set forth above.
19On 17 February 2026, MSW Media submitted to ICE a FOIA request via the DHS online portal citing the relevant media coverage and requesting “copies of all papers seized, confiscated, or otherwise collected from detainees at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center between 9 February 2026 and the date that the search for responsive records is conducted (and specifically NOT the date this request was submitted).”
20MSW Media requested expedited processing, stating: “Given the intense public and media interest in the conditions at the Dilley Center, best exemplified by ProPublica . . . and heavily reported on both before and since, these records will significantly increase public understanding of government operations. . . . There is an urgent need, exemplified by the ProPublica story, to report on these letters, and ICE's reported seizure to prohibit their disclosure is of significant public concern.”
21As of 29 March 2026, ICE has not acknowledged this request, although the DHS online portal has assigned it Request No. 2026-ICFO-17498.
22MSW Media has a legal right under FOIA to obtain the information it seeks as soon as practicable, and there is no legal basis for the denial by ICE of said right.
SECOND CAUSE OF ACTION (ICE – CONSTRUCTIVE RECORDS, NEWS MEDIA, AND FEE WAIVER DENIAL)
23MSW Media repeats and realleges the allegations contained in paragraphs 1-17 set forth above.
24In its 17 February 2026 request letter, MSW Media also requested classification as a representative of the news media and a public interest fee waiver, citing the same reasons stated above.
25On 26 February 2026, MSW Media advised ICE via a message sent through the DHS online portal that “all records held by CoreCivic or any other contractor are still responsive to this request, in addition to records held by ICE employees.”
26MSW Media also directed ICE, “Also, if the records are held by another DHS component, such as CBP, please forward this request to that component as well pursuant to 6 C.F.R. § 5.4(c), while still processing the request for records maintained by ICE or ICE contractors.”
27As of 29 March 2026, ICE has not acknowledged this request, although the DHS online portal has assigned it Request No. 2026-ICFO-17498.
28MSW Media has exhausted all required administrative remedies.
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Public U.S. federal court record (district court docket 73109456, document 1). Source via the RECAP Archive (Free Law Project). The same record is available from PACER. Informational only — not legal advice.