U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, DC 20536

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

October 21, 2010

Peter Lopez
**OMITTED**

Re: 2011FOIA904

Dear Mr. Lopez:

This acknowledges receipt of your September 28, 2010, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), for records regarding joint F BI/ICE operation called
“Operation D-Elite. Your request was received in this office on October 21, 2010.

Due to the increasing number of FOIA requests received by this office, we may encounter some delay in processing your request. Per Section 5.5(a) of the DHS FOIA regulations, 6 C.F.R. Part 5, the Department processes FOIA requests according to their order of receipt. Although DHS’ goal is to respond within 20 business days of receipt of your request, the FOIA does permit a 10-day extension of this time period. As your request seeks numerous documents that will necessitate a thorough and wide-ranging search, DHS will invoke a 10-day extension for your request, as allowed by Title 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(B). If you care to narrow the scope of your request, please contact our office. We will make every effort to comply with your request in a timely manner; however, there are currently 504 open requests ahead of yours.

Provisions of the Act allow us to recover part of the cost of complying with your request. We shall charge you for records in accordance with the DHS Interim FOIA regulations as they apply to non-commercial requesters. As a non-commercial requester you will be charged 10-cents a page for duplication, although the first 100 pages are free, as are the first two hours of search time, after which you will pay the quarter-hour rate ($4.00, $7.00, $10.25) of the Searcher. We will construe the submission of your request as an agreement to pay up to $25.00. You will be contacted before any further fees are accrued.

We have queried the appropriate program offices within ICE for responsive records. If any responsive records are located, they will be reviewed for determination of releasability. Please be assured that one of the processors in our office will respond to your request as expeditiously as possible. We appreciate your patience as we proceed with your request.