Freedom of Information Act: DHS Needs to Reduce Backlogged Requests and Eliminate Duplicate Processing, GAO-20-209T: Published: Oct 17, 2019. Publicly Released: Oct 17, 2019. “The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requires federal agencies to provide the public with access to government records. The Department of Homeland Security continues to receive the largest number of FOIA requests of any federal department or agency, almost 396,000 in FY 2018. DHS’s backlog of unfulfilled FOIA requests almost doubled between 2012 and 2018. But DHS doesn’t have a plan to address this backlog of more than 50,000 requests—which means it will likely continue to struggle with backlogs. DHS also continues to have a duplicative process for FOIA requests for certain immigration files, which slows processing times.”