Supreme Court urged to toss lawsuit that says Ashcroft, Mueller ordered arrest of Muslims
Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller are named in the suit. But the post-9/11 jailing of more than 700 Muslim men was 'perfectly lawful,' says a Bush administration lawyer.
Reporting from Washington — A top Bush administration lawyer urged the Supreme Court today to throw out a lawsuit that accuses former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft of having ordered the arrest and jailing of hundreds of Muslim men in the New York area after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
This "was a perfectly lawful response to the 9/11 attacks," Solicitor Gen. Gregory Garre told the justices, not an unconstitutional targeting of Muslims or Arabs because of their race or religion.
More than 700 Muslim or Arab men were taken into custody in the fall of 2001, and many of them were held in solitary confinement for months. None were charged with crimes related to terrorism, but many of them were found guilty of immigration-related offenses.
The suit naming Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller is one of several similar cases in the federal courts. The Bush administration argues that Ashcroft and Mueller should be dismissed at the preliminary stage because the plaintiffs have no proof these high-ranking officials personally ordered the arrests and the harsh confinement.
The attorney general "did not micromanage" the work of FBI and immigration agents, Garre said.
But a lawyer for one of the detained men said the plaintiffs deserve a chance to show that Ashcroft and Mueller were responsible for the mistreatment of their clients.
Alexander Reinhert, a lawyer from Yonkers, N.Y., said the government had pursued "an illegal policy" that targeted certain men simply because of their race or religion. He argued that if the suit went forward, the lawyers would be able to show that Ashcroft was personally involved in formulating the policy.
Reinhert was representing Javail Iqbal, a Pakistani native and cable television installer on Long Island prior to the 9/11 attacks.
The case of Ashcroft vs. Iqbal raises an important procedural question that the high court has not ruled on clearly in the past. How much evidence does a plaintiff need to proceed with a suit against high-ranking officials of the government?
The Bush administration's move to dismiss the suit against Ashcroft and Mueller appeared to have the support of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and possibly Justice Stephen G. Breyer.
"I don't know what's the basis for these allegations against high-level officials," Scalia commented. He said they should not be forced to undergo questioning as a part of a civil lawsuit.
