FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 8, 2026
CONTACT
Lilly Gonzalez, media@nipnlg.org
NEW YORK, NY - Last week, the Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center and National Immigration Project filed a federal lawsuit, on their own behalf, and also on behalf of the National Police Accountability Project and Black Lives Matter, D.C., for records regarding the Trump administration’s decision to shut down a national police accountability database in early 2025. The lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against the Department of Justice, follows the government’s refusal to provide public records in response to the organizations’ October 2025 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request related to the development, operation, and decommissioning of the database.
The National Law Enforcement Accountability Database (NLEAD), which was established in 2023, was a centralized hub that tracked instances of federal law enforcement officer misconduct. It was created to strengthen hiring practices, and was intended to enable federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to ascertain whether current or past federal officers had a history of misconduct before extending a job offer.
Despite its stated intent, the NLEAD was dismantled before state and local law enforcement were ever granted access to the database. At present, neither federal nor state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement agencies have any streamlined mechanism to determine if eligible job applicants have a history of serious misconduct or a disciplinary record during their time as a federal law enforcement officer.
The organizations’ lawsuit comes amid heightened public concern regarding federal law enforcement misconduct, oversight, and accountability, particularly as immigration enforcement officers have been involved in numerous shootings of immigrants and U.S. citizens alike.
“Extrajudicial killings by federal officers of people posing no safety threat are terrifying examples of what happens when law enforcement feels free to act with impunity,” said Anthony Enriquez, V.P. of U.S. Advocacy and Litigation at the Kennedy Human Rights Center. “The NLEAD was a common-sense guardrail designed to keep people with a history of misconduct out of positions of power that require public trust. Dismantling it is a threat to everyone’s human rights.”
“We are in the middle of a law enforcement accountability crisis,” said Lauren Bonds, Executive Director at the National Police Accountability Project. “Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are literally killing people on our streets, and their bosses in Washington are doing everything they can to cover it up. The Trump administration might want to hide the names of federal officers who engage in misconduct, but the public is entitled to access information about the database even if it is no longer in use. There is too much on the line when it comes to ICE misconduct for the DOJ to stall and hide the ball."
In an initial report covering the first nine months of the NLEAD’s operation, there were 4,790 records of federal officer misconduct for the period from 2018-2023, with the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security accounting for 88% of those incidents.
“The answer to police violence is not more secrecy,” said April Goggans, Core Organizer with Black Lives Matter DC. “Eliminating this database further shields policing from public scrutiny while expanding the power of institutions that have long harmed Black communities. The public has a right to know why this information was hidden, because exposing state violence is essential to building a future rooted in safety, dignity, and self-determination, not policing.”
“The killings haven’t stopped, and ICE’s tactics grow more aggressive by the day,” said Khaled Alrabe, Senior Staff Attorney at the National Immigration Project. “Immigrant communities are the ones left to grieve. DOJ won’t tell the public how or why it took down an essential tool tracking federal officers, and the deaths keep mounting with no accountability. So we’ll see them in court.”
More than ten months after receiving the organizations’ initial FOIA, the government has not even begun producing relevant public records.
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The National Immigration Project is a membership organization of attorneys, advocates, and community members who believe that all people should be treated with dignity, live freely, and flourish. We litigate, advocate, educate, and build bridges across movements to ensure that those most impacted by the immigration and criminal systems are uplifted and supported. Learn more at nipnlg.org. Follow the National Immigration Project on Instagram, Bluesky, Facebook, and Threads at @NIPNLG.