Court of Appeals orders DTOP to disclose subpoena regarding the handover of information on thousands of immigrants

San Juan, P.R. – The Puerto Rico Court of Appeals held that the federal subpoena in the possession of the Department of Transportation and Public Works (DTOP), which led the agency to voluntarily turn over the personal information of thousands of immigrants with undefined status in Puerto Rico, is a public record. In its ruling, the court affirmed the judgment of the Court of First Instance (CFI), which ordered that the document be produced to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Puerto Rico.

“This ruling reiterates that the Secretary of DTOP has an obligation to make public the alleged subpoena that led to the voluntary disclosure of the personal data of thousands of immigrants in Puerto Rico—people to whom the government itself had promised confidentiality under Act 97 of 2013,” said attorney Annette Martínez Orabona, executive director of the ACLU of Puerto Rico.

The ACLU of Puerto Rico filed the lawsuit on October 1, 2025, after DTOP Secretary Edwin González Montalvo refused to comply with a public records request submitted by the organization seeking to learn how the agency handled and responded to the demand made by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the state agency. After an evidentiary hearing, the CFI ordered DTOP to produce the subpoena—an administrative demand issued by an agency or authority—finding that the document was not confidential, as DTOP claimed. The agency failed to comply with the order and instead appealed to the Court of Appeals.

“In Puerto Rico, the right of access to information is recognized as a fundamental human and constitutional right,” emphasized the three-judge appellate panel in a categorical decision that reiterated that the public’s right to know outweighs government attempts at opacity. “We determine that the subpoena that is the subject of the information request submitted to DTOP by the ACLU is a public document subject to disclosure,” the Court of Appeals underscored.

By turning over the information, the Secretary of DTOP endangered the safety of the thousands of immigrants who trusted the government of Puerto Rico when, in 2013, a process was created by law allowing them to obtain a driver’s license and they were promised that information about their immigration status would not be used for immigration purposes. Twelve years later, Governor Jenniffer González’s administration failed to comply with what the local law itself established by handing over the information to ICE without hesitation, the organization said.

“This decision is a direct message to the Secretary of DTOP, the Department of Justice, and all other public agencies regarding their duty to be accountable to the people and the public’s right to know how and why decisions are made—and that there is no justification for betraying the trust that immigrant communities had placed in the government of Puerto Rico,” said attorney Fermín Arraiza Navas, legal director of the ACLU of Puerto Rico.

The appellate court’s conclusion confirms that DTOP and the Department of Justice attempted to shield themselves behind broad generalities about “ongoing investigations” and “public safety” to hide a document that never should have been secret. In that regard, the ACLU of Puerto Rico reiterated that both ICE’s request for information and DTOP’s voluntary disclosure are part of a targeting operation against immigrants who relied on the State when applying for a driver’s license.

In its conclusion, the Court reminded DTOP that limiting access to information is a measure that applies only in certain exceptions for which the government must demonstrate the existence of a compelling interest of higher order than the values protected by the public’s right to information.

“We reiterate that courts are called upon to be cautious in granting any request by the State for confidentiality, and that it is the government’s burden to unequivocally prove the applicability of any exception, and not to rely on mere generalizations. In that sense, we hold that opacity in public affairs must be treated with suspicion and limited, as an exception, to matters of great magnitude,” the Court of Appeals stated.

The Court explicitly rejected the notion that the local government was barred from disclosing the subpoena and emphasized that the government could not identify “the existence of any statute or regulation, federal or local, that prohibits a recipient of a federal subpoena from disclosing it.”

Likewise, the Court rejected the government’s narrative that disclosure of the document would affect an alleged ongoing investigation. “We are not dealing with a document whose disclosure could in any way affect the course of an investigation,” it noted. “The appellant completely failed to explain, concretely and specifically, how disclosure of the subpoena could in any way affect the ordinary security operations of the local and federal agencies concerned,” the Court held.