FourthAmendment.com has posted an excerpt from the court’s order on motions to dismiss (pdf) in Ibrahim v. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., a case that involved an alien being detained and searched after erroneously being placed on the no-fly list. The court held that although an alien’s rights are constitutionally protected while they are on U.S. soil and if she had stayed, she could have sued for the detention, because she left the country, she cannot claim those protections from outside the country. From the court opinion:
Although plaintiff has standing to reach the merits, her argument on the merits is compromised by the fact that she is an alien who voluntarily left the United States and thus voluntarily left her constitutional rights at the water’s edge. She asserts that placing her name on the no-fly list violates her right to freely exercise her religion, her right to freely associate with other Muslims and Malaysians, her right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, her right to equal protection, and her right to procedural due process. The Constitution, however, does not apply extraterritorially to protect non-resident aliens outside our country.
Case: Ibrahim v. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 64619 (N.D. Cal. July 27, 2009):
Good decision.