So close.

Most unhinged letter I've seen yet in my archival research😭 in YIVO's collection about the landsmanshaft mentioned in the letter. Undated.

Well after SIX years, the State Department finally responded to my FOIA request. Now only about 300 more of mine to go.

From my uncle Ruggiero's INS files: he was arrested in 1937 for playing craps. Queue me bursting into show tunes...

Some recognizable alien registrations courtesy of the National Archives

More celebrity A-Files: Van Halen's Father was convicted of drunk bicycling in 1960!

The first ever cake boss?

I scanned some of my cousins' photos over the weekend. My relative was the owner of a bowling alley and there were some photos from the groundbreaking ceremony in 1957. I found another angle of the exact some moment in the local newspaper.

USCIS released its FOIA and PA Case Processing Guide dated 29 August 2024 to @alecferretti.bsky.social in only a few months. It looks like it's grown by 53 pages in 2.5 years, based on the 2022 version IRAP (refugeerights.org) got. Document here: tinyurl.com/USCISFOIAPA-...

Come see Alec rant about the government for $5. This is a much better deal than if you were to hire me privately to rant about the government.

I have used this meme in the past for RTR matters, so I'm glad to see if get a new life

Well if DORIS calls themselves that who I am to argue?

Maybe their files are still on the moon

“Knock knock” “Who’s there?” (b6)

We'll find out in 30 business days if he has an A-File!

Thanksgiving, 2001. I am the small one.

Me to client: This should be easy, I just have to pull up the 1884 birth book on FamilySearch FamilySearch to me:

Today in "Parents who hate their children, " I just found a Union Soldier killed in the Civil War whose name was FREEDOM FREEMAN. I was convinced that this was test data that erroneously got published...but then I found his service record! FREEDOM FREEMAN IS REAL.

Pulling some more songs out of my Archives...see my FOIA appeal to USCIS about redactions on Helen Reddy's A-File... sung to the tune of "I Am Woman"

Inspired by @danielloftus.bsky.social and @mdwaas.bsky.social: I wanted to share the limerick I wrote about my favorite New York City government agency back in 2020. More specifically, I read this into the record at a public hearing back in 2020.

Daily reminder that closing off access to vital records has essentially NO correlation with preventing identity theft.

Due to their compliance with the Nightingale Ruling, USCIS got me Liam Payne's A-File in 26 business days. And to quote a page of his file, "yes, THAT Liam Payne."

There's "not knowing your birthday" and then there's "not knowing how February works"

ChatGPT took it upon itself to redact the PII contained within a spreadsheet I was analyzing. I had accepted the inevitability the the computers to rise up against me, but I never considered that they would form an alliance with the Health Departments, USCIS, and the NYS Appellate Courts.