Court: Immigrants Have Rights at Border
The often-conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (covering Louisiana and Texas) issued an important ruling dated August 4, 2006, reaffirming the constitutional rights of immigrants at the border to be "free from false imprisonment and the use of excessive force by law enforcement personnel." (One might think the proposition is self-evident, but the Government argued strenuously that plaintiff Maria Martinez-Aguero had no such rights.)