Law360 (May 5, 2026, 5:04 PM EDT) -- The American Immigration Council and the U.S. government told a D.C. federal judge they've struck a settlement to end a long-running Freedom of Information Act dispute over records related to family separation policies during the first Trump administration.

In a court filing Tuesday, the American Immigration Council and the government said they reached the formal agreement after informing the court of a settlement in principle in March, and that the matter could be dismissed.

The council filed the suit in June 2018, seeking to compel the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection to respond to requests for information about policies enacted to prosecute immigrants and separate families who arrived at the southern border.

DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Raul A. Pinto, deputy legal director for transparency at the American Immigration Council, said the settlement was the last step in an arduous process to force agencies in charge of separating families during the first Trump administration to produce records related to the policy and the "callousness" of its implementation.

"The thousands of records we were able to obtain through this litigation demonstrate that the goal of the policy was to deter migration by causing migrants the great pain of separating them from their children. Despite the prolonged process, this transparency effort served to ensure the public knows exactly what happened during this time so that we ensure that it never happens again," Pinto added, noting that the council has highlighted the records obtained in a family separation policy platform launched on its website.

The American Immigration Council is represented by its own Raul A. Pinto and by Amanda L. Major and David P. Yin of WilmerHale.

The federal government is represented by Jeanine Ferris Pirro and Stephanie R. Johnson of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia.

The case is American Immigration Council v. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement et al., case number 1:18-cv-01531, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

--Editing by Daniel King.

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