Data, records key to telling immigration stories
FOIA crash course adds to Migrahack experience
Journalist Cindy Carcamo is an expert in telling the personal stories of immigration, in finding human elements of those stories and conveying the information for readers in a way that promotes understanding.
In her work at the Los Angeles Times, she went so far as to track family members separated from each other, with children housed at detention centers in the U.S. and their parents deported back to Central America. Perhaps one of her most well-known stories followed a family to the rural Guatemalan mountains, reunified with their 12-year-old son, a complicated and emotional account.
But these personal stories need something else to back them up, she told attendees of the first Colorado Migrahack at the University of Denver.
“Data and facts matter more than ever,” she said in her keynote speech, before accepting the Estlow Center Anvil of Freedom Award. In that speech, Carcamo pointed out that narratives from various presidential administrations haven’t matched the realities of the data we know is true about immigration, and called on journalists to find the truth and report on it.
Of course, anecdotal stories play an important role in reporting on immigration. But to get to the root of the stories, to get our minds around such a big issue, we journalists need more.
We cannot rely on narratives perpetuated by various sides of the issue. To do so would be only spreading the rhetoric, not truly promoting understanding or analyzing the situation.
And that’s why we need to dig for the records, mine data and make sense of it to anchor our journalism in what we can definitively say is true. The foundation should be fact-based, and documents can help us find those facts.
The real key is finding the documents that prove what’s true, to get past all the various narratives, inflammatory language and debate. In the end, public documents help us anchor ourselves to reality as we’re inundated with pundits, Tweets and arguments over contentious issues.
“We can’t believe what people say anymore,” said Freddy Martinez, policy analyst for the nonprofit Open the Government, who led a FOIA workshop during Migrahack. Martinez is well-known among open-records enthusiasts for suing the Chicago Police Department (a few times) to disclose how they use devices that track and monitor personal cell phone data in high-tech policing. More recently, Open the Government found evidence the Department of Homeland Security had a policy of “zero tolerance” that led to families being separated at the border, despite claims denying it from the former agency leader.
The real key is finding the documents that prove what’s true, to get past all the various narratives, inflammatory language and debate. In the end, public documents help us anchor ourselves to reality as we’re inundated with pundits, Tweets and arguments over contentious issues. If journalists can find the documents that prove truth, we can help society better understand what’s really going on.
The workshop attracted people who were just interested in the process of requesting information, who had never made requests for public records before. There were representatives from nonprofits who help immigrants, civil rights groups and even a woman representing the Mormon Women for Ethical Government.
Martinez provided attendees with valuable tips for negotiating the onion-skin layers of this the FOIA process, by which anyone (not just journalists) can request public information from federal agencies.
Although FOIA can be slow-moving, it can pay off in helping to investigate public policy, waste, fraud and abuse.
Martinez talked about how requesters can narrow their focus to determine which records they’re seeking, where these records are stored, how to write a request and be persistent and, finally, hopefully receive the records and analyze them.
During this workshop, I learned something really important and fairly basic — how to check the “system of records notice” to see where records might be housed within the federal government. Just knowing where a record might be located is part of the battle to filing a request and getting results, especially in dealing with some records that might be under the umbrella of several different agencies.
Another key tip I didn’t know before came from another attendee — a former public liaison from the Department of Justice who advised reporters to find the person assigned to handle requests as she did before she retired. “Those individuals are supposed to help you figure it out,” she said.
Martinez also provided examples of how we can better craft requests to seek documents that exist — instead of just asking questions and expecting answers, as well as other ways to avoid filing FOIA requests that could result in them being labeled as “unduly burdensome” for the agency to handle.
Martinez also advised to connect with the custodians of the records via phone and email, not just to create a paper trail but also to be persistent and let those custodians know requesters are not going away.
I had no idea that identifying myself as a journalist when I made a request could result in a lower fee category and prioritization, and put my request on a faster track to receive results in some cases. I’ve always avoided identifying myself in this capacity before when requesting records, believing it could somehow backfire on me, but it turns out to be an advantage with FOIA.
I also didn’t realize an independent officer can review denials for FOIA requests. Under Colorado’s Sunshine laws, there is no appeal process. The only option if public records are kept secret is to take the agency to court. However, in the federal process, you can appeal a denial, excessive redaction or exemptions. Apparently the Office of Government Information Services is a neutral agency that mediates disputes between agencies and information requesters.
Other tricks also seemed helpful — including using services like MuckRock to keep track of FOIA requests, asking the federal agency for a completion date, sending the same request to multiple agencies, and filing several requests for the same information from the same agency.
While FOIA seems intimidating, and can present an arduous process requiring patience and perseverance, Martinez encouraged all of us to file requests frequently and not lose hope in mining for information.
After all, “Sometimes you hit gold,” he said.
Erin McIntyre is co-publisher of the Ouray County Plaindealer. She traveled to Migrahack Colorado thanks to support from PEN America.
