A federal judge has thrown out the claims of several Muslim men who say the government was wrong to hold them on immigration violations and treat them as terror suspects following the September 11 attacks.In a 99-page ruling released yesterday, Judge John Gleeson of U.S. District Court in Brooklyn rejects the allegation of seven Muslim men and one Hindu man that, although they were here illegally, their constitutional rights were violated when they were rounded up and held for months following the attacks. "After the September 11 attacks, our government used all available law enforcement tools to ferret out the persons responsible for those atrocities and to prevent additional acts of terrorism," Judge Gleeson wrote. "We should expect nothing less. One of those tools was the authority to arrest and detain illegal aliens."
On the first page of the decision, Judge Gleeson compared the detention of these men to that of a dangerous suspect who has been pulled over for a minor violation, such as changing lanes without signaling. "Similarly," he continues, "the government may use its authority to detain illegal aliens pending deportation even if its real interest is building criminal cases against them.