At the end of the 2025 fiscal year, over 1,600 FOIA requests were still in OPM’s backlog, seven times more than at the end of fiscal year 2024. Indeed, I noticed my records requests were taking longer, and they were increasingly steered toward web portals. On its website, Opexus claims to process FOIA requests for 80% of federal institutions. This one told me to submit my request to the National FOIA Portal, a cross-government site that allows you to submit a FOIA request to any agency. The statement added that Opexus recognizes “how important uninterrupted access to FOIA request systems is for the public.”