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U.S. Supreme Court Sanctions Federal Government’s Imprisonment of Muslims in Post-9/11 Roundup

Muslims held on minor charges but subjected to sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, strip searches, etc.

The Supreme Court on Monday quashed a prison mistreatment case, filed by immigrants rounded up after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, against former Attorney General John Ashcroft and other officials.

“High officers who face personal liability for damages might refrain from taking urgent and lawful actions in a time of crisis” if they fear possible lawsuits, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority.

Federal authorities rounded up hundreds of predominantly Muslim and Arab men following the Sept. 11 attacks and, under a policy to detain them even on minor pretexts while terrorism investigations proceeded, held them for immigration violations.

Six Arab and South Asian men jailed at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City sued, alleging their rights had been violated by their unjustified detention under the strictest conditions permitted by federal regulations, which included sleep deprivation, solitary confinement and frequent strip searches, as well as unauthorized verbal and physical abuse, including broken bones.

If the allegations are true, “what happened to respondents in the days following Sept. 11 was tragic,” Justice Kennedy wrote, joined in whole or in part by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

But while federal law would permit inmate lawsuits against state officials over similar allegations in state prisons, Congress had provided no such remedy for those in federal custody, he wrote.

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