On March 12, 2021, Judge Amit Mehta granted summary judgment on the challenged aspects of ICE’s records destruction plan. The court also made clear that during its records evaluation process, NARA must pay close attention to the records’ long-term research value and must meaningfully consider public comments raising concerns.

On July 24, 2020, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the American Historical Association, and the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations submitted a plaintiff's opening brief in support of their suit against the National Archives and Records Administration (“NARA”) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) and signed declarations attesting to their standing to bring the lawsuit.

On March 26, 2020, ICE agreed, in a court-filed stipulation, not to destroy any records while our lawsuit is ongoing.

The AHA has joined the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations in a lawsuit against the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) challenging NARA’s approval of ICE’s records disposition, which authorizes ICE to destroy several categories of records documenting mistreatment of immigrants detained in ICE custody.

The American Historical Association considers the records delineated in this suit an important part of the public record that must be available to future generations of historians. We know from historical work on comparable issues in the past that this genre of government documents is often essential to understanding the full story of our nation’s past.