OAth of Office - DHS

07/21/2023SENT VIA E-MAIL TO: 145367-10397016@requests.muckrock.comWinter CalvertN/AMuckRock News, DEPT MR145367263 Huntington AveBoston, Massachusetts 02115Re: 2023-HQFO-01519Dear Calvert:This letter acknowledges receipt of your 5/5/2023, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), for copies of the Standard Form 61 (SF61) that were signed by Alejandro Mayorkas (Secretary of DHS) and Kenneth Wainstein (DHS Chief Intelligence Officer).This office received your request on 5/5/2023. Due to the increasing number of FOIA requests received by this office, we may encounter some delay in processing your request. Consistent with 6 C.F.R. Part 5 § 5.5(a) of the DHS FOIA regulations, the Department processes FOIA requests according to their order of receipt. Although DHS’ goal is to respond within 20 business days of receipt of your request, FOIA does permit a 10-day extension of this time period in certain circumstances pursuant to 6 C.F.R. Part 5 § 5.5(c).As your request seeks documents that will require a thorough and wide-ranging search, DHS will invoke a 10-day extension for your request pursuant to 6 C.F.R. Part 5 § 5.5(c). If you would like to narrow the scope of your request, please contact our office. We will make every effort to comply with your request in a timely manner. Mr.

Provisions of the FOIA allow us to recover part of the cost of complying with your request. We shall charge you for records in accordance with the DHS FOIA regulations as they apply to non-commercial requesters. As a non-commercial requester, you will be charged 10 cents per page for duplication; the first 100 pages are free, as are the first two hours of search time, after which you will pay the per quarter-hour rate ($4.00 for clerical personnel, $7.00 for professional personnel, $10.25 for managerial personnel) of the searcher. We will construe the submission of your request as an agreement to pay up to $25.00. This office will contact you before accruing any further fees.

We have queried the appropriate component(s) of DHS for responsive records. If any responsive records are located, they will be reviewed for determination of releasability. Please be assured that one of the analysts in our office will respond to your request as expeditiously as possible. We appreciate your patience as we proceed with your request.

Your request has been assigned reference number 2023-HQFO-01519. Please refer to this identifier in any future correspondence. The status of your FOIA request is now available online and can be accessed at: https://foiarequest.dhs.gov/app/CheckStatus.aspx, by using this FOIA request number. Status information is updated daily.

If you have any questions, or would like to discuss this matter, please feel free to contact this office at 1-866-431-0486 or 202-343-1743.

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"Thanks for reaching out to this office. The program office tasked located records and this case is currently on the queue for processing. We expect that you receive a response within 2 to 3 months.

Please understand that our office handles a very large volume of requests – in one month we respond to more requests on average than most Departments receive in a year. In addition to handling a large volume of requests, we are also responsible for processing a variety of particularly sensitive types of records. We have a responsibility to ensure that we carefully review all of the records we process to ensure that we provide maximum transparency while withholding any exempt material that could foreseeably cause harm to a protected interest. This is a labor-intensive task that involves working with offices to ensure that any potentially responsive materials are provided to us and then conducting a page-by-page and line-by-line review of all responsive records.

Again, our general expectation is that we will be able to send you a final response within two to three months. Please know that this estimate may change dramatically based on the volume of work associated with our expedited COVID-19 requests and on the types of records that Program office has provided to us for your request. Regardless of the specificity of your request, we cannot accurately estimate the amount of time it will take to process the records until we understand both the volume and sensitivity of the records.

While we make every effort to be responsive to requesters and hope to be able to respond to you sooner, there may be additional delays.

I hope that this response provides additional insight into why we are not able to give you a more precise estimated date of completion, and why we expect it will take two to three months for us to respond to your request.

Regards,

Privacy Office
Department of Homeland Security
2707 Martin Luther King Jr. AVE SE
Mail Stop 0655
Washington, DC 20528-065
Phone: 202-343-1743 or 866-431-0486
Fax: 202-343-4011
E-mail: foia@hq.dhs.gov
Visit our FOIA website https://www.dhs.gov/foia"

04/05/2024

Winter Calvert
N/A
MuckRock News, DEPT MR145367
Boston, Massachusetts 02115

Re: 2023-HQFO-01519

Dear Requester:

This letter acknowledges receipt of your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Privacy Office, dated 5/5/2023, and received in this office on 5/5/2023. You requested documents regarding copies of the Standard Form 61 (SF61) that were signed by Alejandro Mayorkas (Secretary of DHS) and Kenneth Wainstein (DHS Chief Intelligence Officer)

During our search for responsive records, our office located 2 pages of records that are under the purview of DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A). Therefore, I am transferring this request to the FOIA Officer for Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) for processing under the FOIA and direct response to you. Please find their contact information below:

Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A)
Privacy Office, Mail Stop 0655
Department of Homeland Security
2707 Martin Luther King Jr. AVE SE
Washington, DC 20528-065
Phone: 202-447-4561 | Fax: 202-612-1936 | E-mail: IAFOIA@HQ.DHS.GOV<mailto:IAFOIA@HQ.DHS.GOV>

You have a right to appeal the above determination. Should you wish to do so, you must send your appeal and a copy of this letter, within 90 days of the date of this letter, to: Privacy Office, Attn: FOIA Appeals, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2707 Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, SE, Mail Stop 0655, Washington, D.C. 20528-0655, following the procedures outlined in the DHS FOIA regulations at 6 C.F.R. Part 5 § 5.5(e)(2). Your envelope and letter should be marked "FOIA Appeal." Copies of the FOIA and DHS FOIA regulations are available at www.dhs.gov/foia<http://www.dhs.gov/foia>.
You may contact the DHS FOIA Public Liaison at 202-343-1743 for any further assistance and to discuss any aspect of your request. You may also contact OGIS at the National Archives and Records Administration to inquire about the FOIA mediation services they offer. The contact information for OGIS is as follows: Office of Government Information Services, National Archives and Records Administration, 8601 Adelphi Road-OGIS, College Park, Maryland 20740-6001, e-mail at ogis@nara.gov<mailto:ogis@nara.gov>; telephone at 202-741-5770; toll free at 1-877-684-6448; or facsimile at 202-741-5769.

If you need to contact our office again about this matter, please refer to 2023-HQFO-01519. You may contact this office at 1-866-431-0486 or 202-343-1743.

Good day,

Please see the attached final response to 2024-IAFO-00214.

DHS I&A FOIA