SCOTUS: US officials can’t be held liable for alleged unconstitutional treatment of n

[Peter1469]

SCOTUS: US officials can’t be held liable for alleged unconstitutional treatment of noncitizens

This is not surprising, so long as the officials are acting within their authority. Non citizens don't have the same rights as citizens.

High-level U.S. government officials including former attorney general John D. Ashcroft and former FBI director Robert S. Mueller III cannot be held liable for the alleged unconstitutional treatment of noncitizens detained after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The court in a shorthanded 4-to-2 decision ended a long-running lawsuit filed against former officials in the administration of President George W. Bush for actions following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Hundreds of Arab and South Asian men — many of them Muslim — were arrested and detained as part of a nationwide terrorism investigation.

Six plaintiffs brought a representative suit, brought on behalf of those rounded up, who were noncitizens and lacked lawful immigration status. They alleged they were held because of their race, religion, ethnicity, and national heritage and immigration status, and were subjected to verbal and physical abuse, daily strip searches and months in solitary confinement. None of those held at the detention center in Brooklyn were found to have any connection to terrorism.


Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said that the treatment alleged by the men was “tragic,” but that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York was wrong to let the suit proceed. In general, government officials are shielded from civil lawsuits when they have acted in good faith in carrying out their duties.



Kennedy acknowledged competing concerns.

Read the rest at the link.