Fun facts from the trenches of govt transparency work: yesterday we got this response to our FOIA request for copies of ICE's records of prior approval for recent arrests at WA state courthouses. /1 
In official policy, ICE says it will only conduct arrests at courthouses when "operationally necessary," approved ahead of time using a document called a Field Operations Worksheet, so we'd requested that doc for cases where enforcement actions may raise red flags. /2
Like the 6/20/19 incident in Thurston County in which plainclothes agents wrestled a man to the ground outside the courthouse, described by the presiding judge as “having all the lookings of a kidnapping.” theolympian.com/news/local/art… /3
ICE says they can't release records because they're stored in immigrants' private files. Yet in litigation pursuant to our request for F.O.W.s in other cases, ICE told our atty that F.O.W.s are kept in deportation officers' files, and can be procured for specific operations. /4
If everything is on the up+up here, and ICE is only lurking at courthouses in the interest of "public safety," as they claim, why is ICE hiding the records that would prove it? Read our research report to see why this matters #ICEOutOfCourts jsis.washington.edu/humanrights/20…
