CREW sues DHS and NARA for failing to preserve text messages

CREW is suing the Department of Homeland Security for violating the Federal Records Act (FRA) and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by failing to preserve text messaging data, as well as the National Archives and Records Administration for its failure to initiate an enforcement action for these violations of the FRA. 

DHS claims that since April 9, 2025, it has stopped preserving records of agency business conducted over text message. In communications with FOIA requestors, the agency has brazenly admitted that, in violation of the FRA and FOIA, it no longer maintains text message data created by government officials and can no longer search these records in response to FOIA requests. This new practice is a sudden reversal from the agency’s long standing policy of preserving such records, as required by law. 

Under the Federal Records Act, the government is required to properly maintain “all recorded information, regardless of form or characteristics, made or received by a Federal agency under Federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business.” Since August, members of Congress and civil society groups, including CREW, have written letters to the Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and acting Archivist of the United States Marco Rubio about the unlawfulness of this new policy, urging them to investigate and take remedial action. Both have failed to do so, leaving this unlawful policy in place. 

“The Trump administration’s apparently intentional disregard of federal recordkeeping laws is an affront to the people this government is supposed to be accountable to,” said CREW President Noah Bookbinder. “It raises the question: what information is being kept from the American public because of DHS’s failure to maintain text messaging records?” 

DHS’s unlawful policy denies the American public access to information about the agency’s operations, allowing DHS to function in secrecy and shield its activities from oversight. For these reasons, the court should find DHS and NARA in violation of the FRA and order DHS to reverse the policy and comply with FOIA requests, including CREW’s numerous pending requests, for text message data.