How the Media Probes Trump’s Trade and Immigration Enforcement

FOIAengine: Requests Run the Gamut from Child Detentions to China Trade

In the six months since President Trump’s inauguration, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has received hundreds of news media Freedom of Information Act requests seeking information about the Trump Administration’s dramatic trade, customs and immigration enforcement activities.

According to PoliScio Analytics’ competitive-intelligence database FOIAengine, which tracks FOIA requests in as close to real-time as their availability allows, reporters with leading media outlets submitted 57 requests to CBP during April and May. Included were requests probing CBP practices and statistics, ranging from the detention of children and electronic searches to import statistics and China trade trends.

Last month we analyzed news media FOIA requests to CBP’s sister agency, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, addressing the Trump Administration’s mass deportation program. (See our article, Reports Probe Mass Deportation Program.) This month we’ll take a similar look at journalist inquiries to CBP regarding the Administration’s controversial trade and immigration policies.

CBP manages one of the federal government’s largest FOIA programs, receiving 178,517 requests in fiscal 2024, the last full year for which statistics are available. Its parent, the Department of Homeland Security, accounts for 61 percent of all federal FOIA requests, and CBP accounted for one out of every five DHS requests. 

Major national and international news outlets were responsible for a large share of CBP news media submissions. Requests were submitted by Bloomberg News, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Canada’s Globe and Mail, NBC News, New York Post, Reuters, the Associated Press, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and WIRED. 

The following is a representative selection of FOIA requests focused on customs and immigration enforcement practices, trade enforcement activity, notable enforcement events involving specific individuals and companies, and requests related to U.S.-Canada developments.

Customs and Immigration Enforcement Practices

Customs enforcement practices were a frequent topic of journalist requests, addressing such topics as the detention of children, the use of electronic searches, the use of artificial intelligence and drones, the frequency of vehicle pursuits, the receipt of complaints about Customs staff, and federal cooperation with Texas’ busing of immigrants to other U.S. cities.

• On April 6, Dhruv Mehrotra of WIRED submitted a request for “records related to the electronic device searches conducted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers, particularly at airports, since January 2025:” The inquiry requested information on procedures for searching smartphones, laptops, tablets, external hard drives, as well as records of complaints.

• On May 28, John Greenewald of The Black Vault submitted a request for documents “relating to the testing, evaluation, or deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or drones) equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) systems used by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for border surveillance or migrant detection.”
• On May 1, Jordan Lassiter of MuckRock News submitted a request “pertaining to personnel who had interactions with children” at several detention centers, including the “name of the officer(s) who had interactions with children, dates of interactions with children, detention centers where interactions occurred, nature of the interaction (e.g., arrest, questioning, search), [and] any complaints registered against the officers related to these interactions.”
• On April 2, Toluwani Osibamowo of Dallas NPR’s KERA News submitted a request for “copies of: all vehicle pursuits in Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona … from Jan. 1, 2020, and the date this request” including “documents and multimedia materials associated with each pursuit.”
• On April 23, Brad Heath of Reuters requested “an electronic copy of any database or databases used by CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility to track complaints or investigations of CBP employees” including “the date on which a complaint was received; the date on which an investigation was opened; the date on which an investigation was closed; the nature of the allegations (including codes or tags used to classify various allegations); the location of the alleged incident; the date of the alleged misconduct; whether the allegation was substantiated; the type(s) of misconduct, if any, that were substantiated; the employee’s job title; and any disciplinary actions that were taken as a result.”
• On May 12, Shimon Prokupecz of CNN submitted a request for “all emails, memos, or internal communications between DHS (including ICE or CBP) and the Office of Texas Governor Greg Abbott, the Texas Division of Emergency Management … regarding the busing of migrants from Texas to other U.S. cities, any federal criticism, objections, or warnings about the program, any offers of federal support, resources, or alternatives to busing, references to coordination (or lack thereof) between Texas and DHS, any communications or talking points prepared for DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas or other senior officials regarding the Texas busing program, and any incident reports, memos, or talking points addressing the security or criminal concerns raised by the busing program, including references to criminal organizations or vetting gaps.”

Trade and Enforcement Statistics

Many news media requests sought specific trade and immigration statistics relating to such topics as the number of Chinese importers of record, monthly U.S. customs duty receipts since 2016, the value of imports from China, and U.S. border arrest and apprehension records since 2003. 

• On April 29, Joe Miller of the Financial Times submitted a request for “the number of Chinese companies that have registered as Non-Resident Importers or foreign “importers of record” in each full month of the year to date” and “the number of bills of lading filed by [such] companies.”
• On May 12, Gregory Korte of Bloomberg News submitted a request for “data or statistical reports on collection of customs duties, disaggregated by month, port, country of origin, harmonized system code and/or trade remedy category, from January 2016 through the date of the search.”
• On May 8, Paresh Dave of Wired submitted a request for a “database showing the declared value of duty-bound shipments from China from Jan. 1, 2024” ad “the total unit amount, weight amount, and/or value of good stored at Customs-bonded warehouses from Jan. 1”
• On May 9, Sofia Mejias-Pascoe of inewsource, a San Diego investigative journalism non-profit, submitted a request for “arrest and/or apprehension data under Title 8 USC 1304 across all Border Patrol Sectors since January 1, 2003 through the end of March 31, 2025. Please provide this data in the form of a spreadsheet if available.”

Canadian Border Developments

Journalists submitted nine requests seeking information about U.S.-Canada trade and immigration matters, including statistics on U.S. drug seizures, detentions, secondary screenings, and custody and transfer decisions at the U.S.-Canada border.

• On April 16, Amanda Colleta of the Washington Post submitted a request for records regarding “all fentanyl seizure events in the northern border region for fiscal 2025 and … fentanyl seizures by field officers stationed at lawful ports of entry for fiscal 2025.” 
• On April 15, Marie-Christine Bouchard of La Tribune/Les Coops de l’information, a Quebec cooperative of six former French-language newspapers, submitted a request for the number of Canadian citizens detained by U.S. authorities after crossing at land border ports of entry between Quebec, Canada, and the United States since November 1, 2024.”
• On April 21, Sara Mojtehedzad of Toronto’s Globe and Mail submitted a request for “all communications between Rep. Tim Kennedy (D-NY) and CBP officials regarding detention of individuals at Canada-US border between March 1, 2025, and present.”
• On May 9, Tom Cardoso of the Globe and Mail submitted a request for documents regarding “the following private aircraft flights that entered the United States from Canada in June 2024.” 

Specific Individuals and Companies

Eighteen requests asked for information about customs events involving specific individuals, locations, and companies.

• On April 2, Amanda Colleta of the Washington Post submitted a request for “all records, including but not limited to, memos, briefing notes and emails concerning the Haskell Free Library & Opera House in Vermont from June 2024 to present” including “a list of all apprehensions … the reason for them and whether any charges were laid.” 
• On May 9, Danyelle Khmara of Arizona Public Media submitted a request for “copies of any body-worn camera footage and related audio/video records documenting the arrest or detention of Jose Hermosillo on April 8, 2025 by CBP personnel.”
• On April 15, Emma Scott of the Wall Street Journal submitted a request for “records for Carlos Alexis Uzcategui Vielma: entry/arrival (he arrived 12/10/2024 via a CBP1 appointment in Brownsville, TX); detention (he was detained from 12/10/2024 [to] 3/15/2025, primarily in El Valle Detention Facility); deportation (he was deported to El Salvador on 3/15/2025).” 
• On April 2, Sam Biddle of the Intercept submitted the following request: “On April 1 2025, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin tweeted regarding the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia that “DHS intelligence reports show that he is involved in human trafficking.” I am hereby requesting a copy of any such reports indicating Garcia’s participation in human trafficking.”

FOIAengine is the only source for the most comprehensive, fully searchable archive of FOIA requests across over 40 federal departments and agencies.  FOIAengine has more robust functionality and searching capabilities and standardizes data from different agencies to make it easier to work with. Learn more about FOIAengine here. Sign up here to become a trial user of FOIAengine.

PoliScio now offers everyone free daily FOIAengine Email Alerts when a new FOIA request matches one of your personal keywords. Sign up here to create your account and identify your keywords.

FOIAengine access now is available for all professional members of Investigative Reporters and Editors, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of journalism. IRE is the world’s oldest and largest association of investigative journalists. PoliScio Analytics is proud to be partnering with IRE to provide this valuable content to investigative reporters worldwide. 

To see all the requests mentioned in this article, log in or sign up to become a FOIAengine user. 

Next:  Tracking the latest hedge fund requests to the SEC, FDA, and FTC.

Randy E. Miller, co-creator of FOIAengine, is a Washington lawyer, publisher, and former government official. He has developed several online information products and was a partner at Hogan Lovells, where he founded the firm’s Brussels office and represented clients on international regulatory matters. Miller also has served as a White House trade lawyer, Senior Legal Adviser to the U.S. Mission to the World Trade Organization, policy director to Senator Bob Dole, and adjunct professor at Georgetown University. He is a graduate of Yale and Georgetown Law. FOIAengine is a product of PoliScio Analytics (PoliScio.com), a venture specializing in U.S. political and governmental research, co-founded by Miller and Washington journalist John A. Jenkins. Write to Randy E. Miller at randy@poliscio.com.