United States Second Circuit

In a case where five U.S. citizens and practicing Muslims with no criminal records were searched and detained at the U.S.-Canada border, upon plaintiffs' return from an Islamic conference in Toronto, summary judgment for defendants is affirmed where: 1) defendants had statutory authority for its actions and thus did not violate the Administrative Procedure Act; 2) the searches, which took place at the border, where the government has plenary authority to control entry into the U.S., were not so invasive of plaintiffs' privacy as to violate the Fourth Amendment; and 3) given the intelligence defendants received, the inspection policy was narrowly tailored to achieve the compelling governmental interest in preventing potential terrorists from entering the U.S., and thus did not violate the First Amendment or the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Appellate Information

• Decided 11/26/2007
• Published 11/26/2007

Judges

• STRAUB, Circuit Judge:, Before:  STRAUB, POOLER, and B.D. PARKER, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Second Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Christopher Dunn, New York Civil Liberties Union Foundation (Corey Stoughton, Udi Ofer, Arthur Eisenberg, New York Civil Liberties Union Foundation, New York, N.Y.;  Catherine Kim, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, New York, N.Y.;  Michael Wishnie, New York Civil Liberties Union Foundation cooperating attorney, New York, N.Y.;   Arsalan Iftikhar and Khurrum Wahid, Council on American-Islamic Relations, Washington, D.C.;   David Jay, Buffalo, N.Y.;  Daniel Freeman and Murad Hussain, Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic, National Litigation Project, Yale Law School, New Haven, CT, on the brief), New York, N.Y., for Plaintiffs-Appellants.


• For Appellees:
  
• Lewis S. Yelin, Civil Division, U.S. Department of Justice (Peter D. Keisler, Assistant Attorney General, Washington, D.C.;  Terrance P. Flynn, United States Attorney, Western District of New York, Buffalo, N.Y.;   Douglas N. Letter, Appellate Litigation Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., on the brief), Washington, D.C., for Defendants-Appellees.