Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-147_g31h.pdf
Page Number: 14.0

10 

EGBERT v. BOULE 

Opinion of the Court 

bert  was  carrying  out  Border  Patrol’s  mandate  to  “inter-
dic[t]  persons  attempting  to  illegally  enter  or  exit  the 
United States or goods being illegally imported into or ex-
ported  from  the  United  States.”  6  U. S. C.  §211(e)(3)(A). 
Because “[m]atters intimately related to foreign policy and 
national security are rarely proper subjects for judicial in-
tervention,” Haig v. Agee, 453 U. S. 280, 292 (1981), we re-
affirm that a Bivens cause of action may not lie where, as
here, national security is at issue.

The  Court  of  Appeals  thought  otherwise.  In  its  view, 
Boule’s  Fourth  Amendment  claim  is  “conventional,”  998 
F. 3d, at 387; see also post, at 8, 12 (SOTOMAYOR, J., concur-
ring  in  judgment  in  part  and  dissenting  in  part)  (same), 
and, though it arises in a new context, this Court has not 
“ ‘cast doubt’ ” on extending Bivens within the “ ‘common and 
recurrent sphere of law enforcement’ ” in which it arose, 998 
F. 3d, at 389 (quoting Ziglar, 582 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 
11)).  While Bivens and this case do involve similar allega-
tions of excessive force and thus arguably present “almost 
parallel circumstances” or a similar “mechanism of injury,” 
Ziglar, 582 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 15), these superficial 
similarities are not enough to support the judicial creation 
of  a  cause  of  action.  The  special-factors  inquiry—which 
Bivens  never  meaningfully  undertook,  see  Stanley,  483 
U. S., at 678—shows here, no less than in Hernández, that 
the  Judiciary  is  not  undoubtedly  better  positioned  than
Congress to authorize a damages action in this national-se-
curity context.  That this case does not involve a cross-bor-
der shooting, as in Hernández, but rather a more “conven-
tional” excessive-force claim, as in Bivens, does not bear on 
the relevant point.  Either way, the Judiciary is compara-
tively  ill  suited  to  decide  whether  a  damages  remedy 
against any Border Patrol agent is appropriate.

The  Court  of  Appeals  downplayed  the  national-security 
risk  from  imposing  Bivens  liability  because  Agent  Egbert
was not “literally ‘at the border,’ ” and Boule’s guest already