Law360 (May 6, 2026, 5:23 PM EDT) -- A federal judge in Washington has partially sided with immigration officials' decision to not provide some information about border searches of electronic devices that a First Amendment group at Columbia University requested, finding the documents contained privileged, decision-making details.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan issued an order granting partial summary judgment in favor of the government. The court found that exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act allowed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection to justify withholding information that was part of their definable decision-making process, including the redacted portions of DHS' impact assessment of border searches of electronic devices.

Judge Chutkan rejected the argument from Columbia's Knight First Amendment Institute that DHS does not have deliberative process privilege because the department failed to identify a final agency decision linked to the redactions. The judge pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S.

"The court did not require that a final decision or policy exist, only that the information withheld related to some identified decision or policy 'at issue,' which would include a decision or policy merely being contemplated," according to the order.

Therefore, the judge said, the failure of DHS to point to a final decision that resulted from the assessment does not invalidate its deliberative process privilege claim in this instance.

Knight had also asserted, for the same reasons, that the exemption was not applicable with regard to DHS' decision to withhold a one-page draft document from an employee that evaluated the effectiveness of the department's policies in safeguarding the rights of the public during search of electronic devices at the border. However, the court rejected this challenge as well.

"This argument fails because DHS expressly identified the deliberative process to be that of examining the agency's policies regarding border searches of electronic devices in order to aid the DHS secretary's assessment of the overall department policies on the subject," according to the order.

Knight filed FOIA requests with DHS and its agencies seeking several categories of records regarding the government's searches of individuals' electronic devices when they crossed the border into the U.S. The organization filed suit in March 2017 challenging the agencies' decision to heavily redact many of the thousands of pages of records and withhold some records all together.

Judge Chutkan, however, did not grant a complete win to the government, saying CBP did not sufficiently justify why it was legally exempt from providing Knight with a factual spreadsheet that included data about travelers whose devices were searched at the border. She said the Knight was correct in asserting that the factual information in the spreadsheet about the travelers' birthplace, ethnicity, citizenship and occupation were not intertwined with the deliberative process. CBP, the judge found, failed to address whether they could extract and release the factual information from the spreadsheet.

"Factual information may not be withheld pursuant to Exemption 5," according to the order. "The deliberative process privilege protects factual materials only when they are inextricably intertwined with opinions, recommendations, and deliberations."

 CBP had also cited the personal privacy exemption, arguing that releasing the information could make the individuals identifiable to friends, neighbors or clients.

"Knight Institute is correct that CBP's hypotheticals are to some degree faulty," the judge said. "Not only is Knight Institute not seeking the number of traveling companions, but it is not seeking information that identifies the country the traveler visited or the duration of the visit."

Judge Chutkan allowed DHS and CBP to renew the motions regarding the applicability of the exemptions in these two instances.

Representatives of the U.S. Department of Justice and the Knight Institute did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

Knight is represented by Matthew S. Hellman and Ethan Wong of Jenner & Block LLP and in-house counsel Caroline M. DeCell and Stephanie C. Krent.

The government is represented by David M. Glass of the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Division.

The case is Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security et al., case number 1:17-cv-00548, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

--Editing by Covey Son.

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