Status: Open
Location: New York
Plaintiffs: National Police Accountability Project; Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center; National Immigration Project; Black Lives Matter DC
Case Summary:
On January 20, 2025, days after his inauguration, President Donald Trump began his second term in office by issuing Executive Order 14148, which deactivated the National Law Enforcement Accountability Database (NLEAD) without explanation.
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 a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request we filed in October 2025 related to the development, operation, and decommissioning of the database.
The National Law Enforcement Accountability Database was established in 2023 as a centralized hub that tracked instances of federal law enforcement officer misconduct. It was created to strengthen hiring practices, enabling federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to ascertain whether current or former 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. Now, neither federal nor state, local, tribal, or 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.
This 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.
The now decommissioned database documented 4,790 records of federal officer misconduct from 2018-2023, with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) accounting for 88% of those incidents.
The public is entitled to information about the database and its contents, especially at a time of escalating overreach, misconduct, and violence by federal law enforcement. NPAP, National Immigration Project, the Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center, and Black Lives Matter DC are suing the DOJ to demand answers.
Case Filing: