A nonprofit watchdog group with progressive leanings secured an apology from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) following a lawsuit it filed, accusing the department of potentially breaching legal requirements to retain text messages and other electronic records. This came weeks after the legal action against Secretary Kristi Noem’s agency.

On October 20, American Oversight initiated a legal battle by filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The lawsuit alleged that DHS’s claim that “text message data” related to government operations “generated after April 9, 2025, is no longer maintained” directly conflicted with the Federal Records Act.

Further, DHS’s assertion that it “no longer has the capability to conduct a search of text messages” was seen as a violation of FOIA by the plaintiffs. They urged Noem and acting Archivist Marco Rubio at the National Archives (NARA) to fulfill their statutory responsibilities and recover any records that were improperly destroyed.

The lawsuit was prompted by requests for communications, including texts, Signal messages, and emails involving Noem and DHS officials. These communications concerned topics such as the National Guard’s deployment to Los Angeles, “Alligator Alcatraz,” Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and messages “sent or received” by Philip Hegseth, identified as the DHS liaison and senior advisor at the Pentagon, who is also the brother of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

On Wednesday, the court received a joint status report, which included a statement from DHS’s Chief Data Officer, Michael Weissman.

In that declaration, Weissman explained that technology changes resulted in both a “misunderstanding” and “erroneous information” to American Oversight about DHS’ record retention capabilities and practices.

“DHS policy requires the retention of all electronic federal records, as required by law. The way technology is used by DHS to preserve federal records, including electronic messages, however, has changed, which led to the misunderstanding about how the Department preserves electronic messages and the erroneous information provided to Plaintiffs in response to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests that are the subject of this Complaint,” Weissman stated, under penalty of perjury.

In a lengthier technical explanation, the chief data officer averred that “cybersecurity failures” led the government to move away from message archiving software TeleMessage in April, necessitating DHS employees to “manually archive messages” in screenshots stored in “Shared Drive work folders” or, in this case of senior officials like Noem, having a technician “manually access the device and use forensic tools to archive a copy of the device, including all electronic messages, which can then be searched[.]”

Weissman added that DHS investigated itself and found “no evidence that any” records have been destroyed.

“Nevertheless, a litigation hold has been issued that includes each of the named custodians, and DHS has uncovered no evidence that any federal records have been destroyed or that individual employees are not following DHS policies,” the declaration continued. “DHS policies have never authorized employees to destroy records. Although DHS is working to identify new, secure, technical solutions to allow automatic archiving of electronic messages, DHS has always maintained Department-wide policies requiring all federal records to be preserved, including those sent by electronic message.”

American Oversight appears pleased about the “erroneous information” admission but remains unconvinced about DHS’ compliance with the law.

“DHS has now admitted that it provided inaccurate information about whether Secretary Noem’s and other top agency officials’ text messages were properly preserved,” American Oversight Executive Director Chioma Chukwu said in a statement. “We’re talking about messages exchanged amid major national controversies — from the deployment of military forces on American streets to inhumane immigration crackdowns and deportations carried out in defiance of court orders.”

“The public deserves to know whether these records still exist, and whether officials destroyed evidence of how those decisions were made. After misleading us for months, DHS wants us to trust that the law is being followed,” Chukwu added. “But the agency has not turned over the records we requested nor has it provided details about whether senior officials’ text messages have been preserved in accordance with the law. It’s time for transparency — not more empty assurances.”