The American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia announced Wednesday it is one of the dozens of ACLU affiliates throughout the country filing 13 Freedom of Information Act lawsuits seeking information on how President Donald Trump's executive order, blocking people from several majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States, was implemented by local agents.
The ACLU is seeking information from U.S. Customs and Border Patrol and the Department of Homeland Security on how local officials implemented the executive orders at 55 airports.
Yeager Airport in Charleston, which is erroneously called an international airport in the lawsuit, is one of the airports listed.
It was included out of "an abundance of caution," according to Joseph Cohen, executive director of the ACLU of West Virginia.
Dozens of ACLU affiliates filed 13 Freedom of Information Act lawsuits Wednesday. The ACLU of West Virginia filed its lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia with the ACLU of Georgia, the ACLU of North Carolina and the ACLU of South Carolina.
The civil liberties organization wants federal officials to respond to a FOIA request sent on Feb. 2, and to disclose the requested records, including "records created on or after January 27, 2017 concerning CBP's interpretation, enforcement and implementation of" the president's executive order, as well as judicial orders.
The ACLU also requested records concerning the number of individuals who were detained or subjected to extensive screening.
The FOIA, sent to U.S. Customs & Border Protection in College Park, Georgia, sought information on the local implementation of the executive order at international airports within the purview of the Atlanta Field Office.
Fifty ACLU affiliates had filed 18 FOIAs with local U.S. Customs and Border Protection offices.
The lawsuit says that federal officials have failed to tell the ACLU whether they will send the requested documents.
In addition to Yeager Airport, the lawsuit seeks records related to implementation of the executive orders at other sites overseen by CBP's College Park, Georgia field office, including Hartsfield/Jackson International Airport, Charlotte Douglas International Airport, and Charleston International Airport in South Carolina.
The lawsuit mentions people being detained at the Hartsfield/Jackson International Airport, but does not say anything about anyone being detained at Yeager.
"We have no reason to believe that anything happened at Yeager," Cohen said. "We do know that people from West Virginia were caught up in the executive order."
He recounted one story, of the father of an Iranian-American West Virginia man living in the northern part of the state, who had traveled to Iran and was to fly back the weekend the ban was implemented.
He had a medical episode, resulting from a blood pressure spike, because he thought he was not going to be able to see his children again, Cohen said.
When the ACLU was contacted the following Monday, ACLU employees said the ban no longer applied to lawful permanent residents. The father remains in Iran, but has since been medically cleared to return to the United States.
"While Trump's first Muslim ban was in effect, we heard troubling reports from around the country that CBP officers were disobeying federal court orders," Jamie Lynn Crofts, ACLU legal director, said in the news release. "Under the Freedom of Information Act, the American people have a right to know who was making the decision to flout federal judges and the U.S. Constitution."
Terry Sayre, executive director of Yeager Airport, said the executive orders did "not really" affect the airport and "had no effect on airport operations." He said that one customs agent does currently work at the airport.
The ACLU is also aware of several U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids that have occurred in West Virginia in recent months. Cohen said he is aware of ICE raids at Mexican restaurants in Beckley and St. Albans, and at the Food Lion grocery store and a Mexican restaurant in Martinsburg.
"We are definitely hearing about them more than we heard about them in the past," he said, adding that he isn't sure if raids are happening more frequently or people are more nervous.
"There is a really deep level of fear," he said.
Trump's original executive order, signed Jan. 27, and a March 6 revision, which dropped Iraq from the list, have both been blocked by courts. Trump repeatedly promised a "Muslim ban" during his campaign for president, but he and members of his administration have denied that the executive orders were intended to target Muslims.
Reach Erin Beck at erin.beck@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5163, Facebook.com/erinbeckwv, or follow @erinbeckwv on Twitter.