The federal government turned away a record number of document requests from the public and accumulated the highest-ever backlog of cases in fiscal year 2025, raising questions about compliance with the Freedom of Information Act.
Federal agencies processed around 1.6 million requests for documents that year, the highest number since officials began releasing comprehensive statistics about FOIA requests 16 years ago, according to government data. But it released the requested documents, in part or in full, just 47 percent of the time, a New York Times analysis found, the lowest grant rate since at least 2010.
Federal agencies also accumulated a backlog of overdue requests of nearly 340,000 as of Sep. 30, 2025. Requesters with pending asks waited longer than 240 days on average to hear back from federal agencies, according to the data, though the law requires a response within 20 days.
The numbers, which cover a period including the end of the Biden administration and the beginning of the second Trump administration, show how the government has become less forthcoming with information sought by the public under the nation’s marquee transparency law, even as demand for that information has increased.
Former and current FOIA officials attribute the recent years’ spike in requests to artificial intelligence tools that lowered the hurdle for drafting inquiries, mass submissions from Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and more immigrants and their lawyers seeking records to obtain rights to remain in the U.S. as the government increased deportations. Both Democratic and Republican administrations have struggled to stick to the legally mandated 20-day deadline to respond to requests.
(Heritage Foundation did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but it submitted more than 100,000 requests since 2022. ProPublica reported that many of its requests sought emails or documents with buzzwords such as “voting,” “DEI” or “climate equity.”)
But groups that routinely seek records from the government say the problem appears to have worsened under President Trump.
That is in part, they say, because the president’s aggressive agenda in his second term has drawn a deluge of requests. They also point to significant downsizing of offices that process information inquiries in the early part of Mr. Trump’s second term.
The White House’s Office of Management and Budget, which granted 8 percent of records requests it processed in fiscal year 2025 compared with 31 percent from the year before, blamed “left activists groups” and “Trump derangement syndrome” for spikes in inquiries and the poor agency performance in responding to them. The office’s communications director, Rachel Cauley, said the Trump administration chose to “hire ICE officers instead of FOIA processors,” referring to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The Justice Department, which oversees agencies’ compliance with records inquiries, noted that the number of requests received last year was “higher than at any time in history,” doubled from 2021. The department is one of the few agencies that did not reduce FOIA staffing in 2025.
The Department of Homeland Security, which received 60 percent of all records requests in fiscal year 2025, reiterated a common refrain in the Trump administration that it is “the most transparent” in U.S. history. Department of Health and Human Services said suggestions that the administration had been “undermining the FOIA process are simply untrue,” emphasizing the volume of requests it received.
Between October 2024 and September 2025, the government provided records with no redactions in response to about 9 percent of requests processed during that year, compared with 22 percent a decade earlier, reaching a record low since at least 2010.
Government watchdogs and former FOIA officers say the diminished level of full disclosures raises questions about whether federal agencies are incorrectly redacting information eligible for release under FOIA. Federal agencies must release documents upon receiving requests unless requested records fall under specific exemptions such as those concerning national security, individual privacy or ongoing criminal investigations.
Annual reports for 2025 also show a record 36 percent spike in backlogs over the prior year for all agencies other than Homeland Security Department, marking the largest increase in at least 16 years. Because of a court order, Homeland Security is subject to a stricter standard for FOIA compliance than other agencies.
The Freedom of Information Act took effect in 1967 and serves broad swaths of the American public including journalists, government watchdogs, veterans, immigrants, businesses, historians and scientists. Retired military personnel and immigrants often seek their own documents to prove eligibility for government benefits, while corporations and researchers request relevant data for their operations and studies.
Gaston D’Agrivieri, 39, sought to have his two-decade-old student loans canceled after the school he attended, a for-profit arts college, closed after facing allegations of fraud. Mr. D’Agrivieri’s lawyer used FOIA on his behalf to ask the education department for debt repayment records, hoping to establish eligibility for loan forgiveness.
But more than a year after submitting the request, the education department has not provided the requested documents. Mr. D’Agrivieri still owes around $6,000 — a debt that is growing because he is unemployed and it continues to accrue interest. The backlog of requests from the department — which under President Trump cut more than half the staff that processes document requests — grew 83 percent from the year before, according to the Times’s analysis.
“It’s very frustrating,” said Mr. D’Agrivieri, who is receiving legal help from a nonprofit law firm. “Even with a signature of a lawyer, there is a big delay.”
The government data the Times analyzed covers more than 100 federal agencies, which report their FOIA performance each fiscal year. Fiscal year 2025, the most recently available year, covers roughly four months of the Biden administration and seven months of the Trump administration.
Lauren Harper, the Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said the Trump administration has shown particular disregard for FOIA, which serves a critical function for the public.
“There’s no other structure or system out there that allows people to ask the government to disclose information that the government isn’t already interested in disclosing,” Ms. Harper said of the open records law.
The Trump administration has also been scrutinized for moves that government watchdogs say sidestep public records laws.
In August 2025, the Homeland Security Department disclosed that it no longer maintained the text message data of its top officials. The department abandoned software to automatic capture of the data, advising officials to take screenshots of their messages for compliance.
The White House has also moved to make private Mr. Trump’s records completely, pushing a legal theory that would make them exempt from future records requests by declaring the Presidential Records Act of 1978 unconstitutional. Such a legal claim, if upheld, would dismantle the Watergate-era law that mandated preservation of presidential documents and made them available for FOIA requests starting five years after Mr. Trump leaves office.
Several former and current FOIA officials told the Times that a major reason for the backlog appears to be steep staff cuts initiated early in Mr. Trump’s second term by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. The Times’s analysis shows that the federal government shed more than 14 percent of its FOIA work force, reaching lowest staffing levels since fiscal year 2017, when the government received fewer than half of the requests it received in 2025.
Backlogged appeals at the Department of Homeland Security, which cut more than 30 percent of the staff that processed records request, increased fourfold. After receiving denials, requesters can appeal, which agencies need to process in 20 days. One FOIA staff member at D.H.S. on average had 2,207 requests to process last year, the largest average workload since at least 2008, and a 60 percent increase from the year before.
Some FOIA officials were fired or reassigned after releasing documents, prompting fears that lawful disclosure of politically sensitive materials can cost jobs.
Last year, two FOIA officials at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence were fired after releasing a declassified report that countered Mr. Trump’s claims about the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, according to people familiar with the matter. The intelligence office did not comment on the personnel actions, but noted it “closed more FOIA cases” under Mr. Trump than it did during the Biden administration and called its performance “excellent.”
Frequent requesters of government documents say unusual moves and responses from FOIA offices add to processing time.
Agencies are increasingly asking clarification on requests even when original queries clearly state what they are seeking, said Ginger McCall, who served as a FOIA lawyer at three different agencies until taking DOGE’s resignation offer last year. Those requests pause the clock for the 20-day deadline until requesters respond, delaying records processing.
In responding to a request by Ms. Harper’s Freedom of the Press Foundation for a copy of a specific email sent on July 24, 2025, Environmental Protection Agency said her query was too broad, asking for specific officials’ names for the search, according to correspondence reviewed by the Times.
“I’m stunned to hear that a FOIA request for a single email is considered too broad,” Ms. Harper replied to E.P.A., which eventually agreed to process the request.
Government lawyers have asked for weeks of extension to deadlines for initial replies to FOIA lawsuits. They asked judges to strike from court records information requesters included to prove their urgency or public interest, according to court filings. Judges struck down many of the government’s requests, but those moves added to the litigation timeline that already span many months.
Ms. McCall, who now brings records litigation against federal agencies, said the “general gist” of the Trump administration’s response to records requests had been “delay, delay, delay.”
“It’s a delay tactic to push back the deadline for processing the documents because every document becomes less interesting over time,” Ms. McCall said.
Julian E. Barnes contributed reporting.
