The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has held that noncitizens stopped at the U.S. border have the same constitutional rights as citizens to be free from false imprisonment and the use of excessive force by law enforcement officers.
In the Aug. 4 opinion, a three-judge panel found a Mexican woman who alleges she was manhandled at the border by a U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service agent in El Paso in 2001 is entitled to Fourth Amendment protection to “be free of entirely meritless arrests and the excessive use of force.”
