BREAKING NEWS: Appeals victory in post-9/11 immigration detention abuse

thrilled to share a piece of good news and a significant victory for CCR. Today, in a case we brought over 13 years ago in the dark days after 9/11, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated claims against high-level government officials – former Attorney General John Ashcroft, former FBI director Robert Mueller, and former INS Commissioner James Ziglar – for their roles in the post-9/11 immigration detentions, abuse, and religious profiling of Muslim, Arab, and South Asian men. It is exceedingly rare for a court to allow claims against such high-ranking officials to proceed.
Even better, in an unusual “Final Thoughts” section in the opinion, the court wrote:

“If there is one guiding principle to our nation it is the rule of law. It protects the unpopular view, it restrains fear‐based responses in times of trouble, and it sanctifies individual liberty regardless of wealth, faith, or color. The Constitution defines the limits of the Defendants’ authority; detaining individuals as if they were terrorists, in the most restrictive conditions of confinement available, simply because these individuals were, or appeared to be, Arab or Muslim exceeds those limits. It might well be that national security concerns motivated the Defendants to take action, but that is of little solace to those who felt the brunt of that decision. The suffering endured by those who were imprisoned merely because they were caught up in the hysteria of the days immediately following 9/11 is not without a remedy.”

Read the New York Times’s piece on today’s ruling here, and the Associated Press’s article here. Senior Staff Attorney Rachel Meeropol will discuss the ruling and its significance tomorrow morning on Democracy Now!