Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/16pdf/15-1358_6khn.pdf
Page Number: 10

Cite as:  582 U. S. ____ (2017) 

5 

Opinion of the Court 

sented,  acknowledge  that  in  the  ordinary  course  aliens
who are present in the United States without legal author-
ization can be detained for some period of time.  But here 
the challenge is to the conditions of their confinement and 
the reasons or motives for imposing those conditions.  The 
gravamen of their claims was that the Government had no 
reason to suspect them of any connection to terrorism, and 
thus had no legitimate reason to hold them for so long in 
these harsh conditions. 

As relevant here, respondents sued two groups of federal
officials  in  their  official  capacities.    The  first  group  con-
sisted  of  former  Attorney  General  John  Ashcroft,  former
FBI Director Robert Mueller, and former Immigration and 
Naturalization  Service  Commissioner  James  Ziglar.    This 
opinion refers to these three petitioners as the “Executive
Officials.”  The  other  petitioners  named  in  the  complaint 
were  the  MDC’s  warden,  Dennis  Hasty,  and  associate
warden, James Sherman.  This opinion refers to these two
petitioners as the “Wardens.”

Seeking  to  invoke  the  Court’s  decision  in  Bivens,  re-
spondents  brought  four  claims  under  the  Constitution 
itself.  First, respondents alleged that petitioners detained 
them  in  harsh  pretrial  conditions  for  a  punitive  purpose, 
in  violation  of  the  substantive  due  process  component  of
the  Fifth  Amendment.  Second,  respondents  alleged  that
petitioners  detained  them  in  harsh  conditions  because  of
their  actual  or  apparent  race,  religion,  or  national  origin,
in violation of the equal protection component of the Fifth
Amendment.  Third,  respondents  alleged  that  the  War-
dens  subjected  them  to  punitive  strip  searches  unrelated
to  any  legitimate  penological  interest,  in  violation  of  the
Fourth  Amendment  and  the  substantive  due  process
component of the Fifth Amendment.  Fourth, respondents
alleged that the Wardens knowingly allowed the guards to
abuse  respondents,  in  violation  of  the  substantive  due 
process component of the Fifth Amendment.