Which U.S. law‑enforcement agencies have FOIA‑released itineraries or attendee lists for Israel exchange programs?
Executive summary
A multi-year investigative project called Deadly Exchange says it obtained hundreds of records through FOIA requests that include participant lists, itineraries and related materials documenting U.S. law‑enforcement travel to Israel, indicating that both federal agencies and many local police departments have FOIA‑released materials tied to those exchange programs [1] [2]. Public FOIA portals and libraries maintained by agencies such as ICE, DHS components (including CBP) and the FBI are known channels where such documents are posted or can be requested, but the public record assembled by RAIA/JVP remains the clearest consolidated source for which specific itineraries and attendee rosters were released via FOIA [3] [4] [5] [6] [1].
1. Deadly Exchange: the aggregation that makes sense of many agency FOIAs
The Deadly Exchange research effort—produced by Researching the American Israeli Alliance (RAIA) in partnership with Jewish Voice for Peace—explicitly states it relied on “dozens of FOIAs yielding hundreds of documents” and published a database mapping Israeli trainings of U.S. law enforcement, which functions as the primary public consolidation of itineraries and attendee lists produced through individual agency FOIA releases [1] [2]. This report therefore serves as the de facto index to which U.S. law‑enforcement entities have released travel manifests, agendas or participant names in response to FOIA requests, rather than a single agency repository [1].
2. Federal components with FOIA infrastructure that have produced relevant records
Multiple federal agencies with active FOIA programs either host searchable FOIA libraries or accept FOIA requests for travel and training records: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) maintains a FOIA office and publishes responsive records, and is explicitly cited by Deadly Exchange as one of the agencies whose officials attended or were documented in exchanges [3] [2]. The Department of Homeland Security and its components operate FOIA libraries that publish frequently requested and component‑level records, creating another channel for released materials on Israel exchanges [4] [7]. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has a FOIA portal and handles requests for records such as travel or training, making it a likely source for itineraries and attendee lists when CBP personnel participated [5].
3. FBI, DOJ and other federal FOIA repositories — available but not decisive on lists
The FBI’s Vault is a prominent public FOIA library containing thousands of documents and demonstrates the bureau’s capacity to release documents under FOIA, although the Vault itself is not cataloged in the sources here as a comprehensive repository for Israel‑exchange attendee lists [6]. The Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy (OIP) posts frequently requested records and processed FOIA releases, providing an institutional path for DOJ components and offices to disclose relevant materials [8]. These federal platforms exist and have posted law‑enforcement records broadly, but the publicly cited consolidation of Israel‑exchange itineraries and rosters in the reporting comes principally from RAIA/JVP’s FOIA harvest rather than a single DOJ/FBI listing [6] [8] [1].
4. Local and municipal police departments: FOIAs scattered but collected
Deadly Exchange’s mapping shows participation by a wide array of municipal and state police—from chiefs and commanders to rank‑and‑file officers—and reports that many of those records were obtained through local or state FOIA or public‑records requests and included travel agendas and participant names [2] [1]. The decentralized nature of municipal records means the underlying FOIA releases are scattered across jurisdictions’ public‑records systems; RAIA’s database is therefore the practical compilation of those disparate releases rather than a single federal archive [2] [1].
5. Limits, exemptions and why a single authoritative list does not exist
While many documents have been disclosed, FOIA law contains nine exemptions and several law‑enforcement exclusions that permit agencies to redact or withhold names, itineraries or operational details on privacy or law‑enforcement‑safety grounds, which helps explain variation in what was released and why agencies sometimes resist publishing attendee rosters [9] [10] [11]. The available sources confirm that dozens of FOIA requests yielded hundreds of documents aggregated by Deadly Exchange, and federal FOIA portals at ICE, DHS components, CBP and the FBI provide the mechanisms for those releases, but the sources do not offer a single, authoritative roster enumerating every U.S. agency that produced attendee lists or itineraries one‑by‑one outside the RAIA/JVP compilation [1] [3] [4] [5] [6].
6. Bottom line
The most concrete public evidence that U.S. law‑enforcement itineraries and attendee lists for Israel exchange programs exist in FOIA‑released form comes from the Deadly Exchange project’s FOIA‑driven database, which attributes responsive documents to a range of federal agencies (ICE, DHS components, CBP), the FBI’s FOIA capacity, and numerous municipal police departments—while acknowledging redactions and exemptions mean the record is incomplete and decentralized [1] [2] [3] [4] [6] [5]. The reader seeking primary documents should consult the Deadly Exchange database as the entry point and then pursue targeted FOIA/library searches at ICE, DHS/CBP, the FBI Vault and local jurisdiction public‑records offices for agency‑specific itineraries or attendee rosters [1] [3] [4] [6] [5].