The Iqbal Case

The New York Times has an op-ed today bemoaning the Supreme Court's ruling in the case of Javaid Iqbal, a Pakistani citizen. The court threw out his lawsuit against the former attorney general and the FBI director. Iqbal alleges that he was mistreated while in custody.

Unlike what the Times thinks, the court acted correctly. Iqbal is not a U.S. citizen and was arrested after 9/11 on immigration charges. He was also suspected of terrorist ties. He actually pled guilty to some fairly minor offenses and was deported. Iqbal is no innocent victim. He's an admitted criminal alien. Such individuals should have no right to file any lawsuits at all in the U.S., let alone ridiculous suits against high government officials. I guess we don't have enough lawsuits being filed by U.S. citizens. We need to import some from Pakistani criminals.

The Times says,

When people with legitimate claims cannot get a hearing, the whole system of American justice is diminished.

Except that Iqbal doesn't have a legitimate claim. If he did, he would have filed his lawsuit against the people who supposedly mistreated him. What diminishes the American system of justice is allowing it to be used as a weapon against the U.S. by criminal aliens. This case should have been thrown out by the first judge who heard it. The legal travesty here is that such a frivolous suit made it all the way to the Supreme Court.