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Many noncitizens need immigration records the government has to prove their legal stay and resist deportation. The government is redacting and withholding those documents, lawyers say.
By Minho Kim
Minho Kim has covered the Trump administration’s compliance with the Freedom of Information Act and its responses to public records requests. He spoke with 35 immigration lawyers for this article.
Sept. 14, 2026Updated 1:37 p.m. ET
Immigrants seeking documents from the government to prove that they are in the country legally are being rebuffed or provided paperwork that is heavily redacted, according to dozens of immigration lawyers, who say the refusals put their clients at risk of deportation.
In the past, federal agencies routinely turned over documents immigrants requested — for instance, when international adoptees sought proof of their parents’ U.S. citizenship, or noncitizens wanted copies of petitions or interview transcripts for amnesty programs. These records requests, filed by hundreds of thousands of immigrants each year, are often the only way for them to secure documents that detail their full immigration history.
But the Trump administration has been redacting and withholding documents at a strikingly high rate, according to nearly three dozen immigration lawyers interviewed by The New York Times. The government has sometimes asserted that it could not find even documents that immigrants and their lawyers know exist, such as an expired passport or parts of prior applications. In other cases, officials have provided documents, but critical information is struck out, the lawyers said.
“Delays and redactions pile on to the many other intentional ways immigrants are being deprived of due process in immigration court,” said Kelly Rojas, a lawyer who provides pro bono services to asylum seekers and crime victims at Amica Center for Immigrant Rights.
The experiences align with claims by Timothy Turner, a former senior official at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’s internal record-keeping office. Mr. Turner alleged in a whistle-blower complaint last year that the agency improperly enacted policies early in the second Trump administration to make it harder for immigrants to get documents to which they are legally entitled.
For instance, he said in his complaint to Congress, the agency in May 2025 ordered staff to withhold all documents in languages other than English. Staff members were also told to hold back marriage certificates, joint bank statements, tax forms, portions of immigration court hearing transcripts and other documents, citing privacy laws.
