Alejandro De La Paz v. Jason Coy
Alejandro De La Paz v. Jason Coy
Opinion of the Court
Treating the petition for rehearing en banc as a petition for panel rehearing, the petition for panel rehearing is DENIED. The court having been polled at the request of one of its members, and a majority of the judges who are in regular active service and not disqualified not having voted in favor (Fed. R.App. P. 35 and 5th CiR. R. 35), the petition for rehearing en banc is DENIED.
In the en banc poll, 4 judges voted in favor of rehearing (Judges Dennis, Prado, Graves, and Costa), and 11 judges voted against rehearing (Chief Judge Stewart and Judges Jolly, Davis, Jones, Smith, Clement, Owen, Elrod, Southwick, Haynes, and Higginson).
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting from Denial of Rehearing En Banc.
Plaintiffs allege that U.S. border patrol agents violated the Fourth Amendment by stopping them solely because of their Hispanic appearance. The respective district courts denied the border patrol agents’ motions to dismiss, holding in part that Plaintiffs could assert a claim for damages under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 (1971). On appeal, the panel reversed, asserting that undocumented immigrants
As the panel’s opinion points out, the first step in assessing whether a Bivens remedy is available is to determine whether allowing a Bivens action to proceed would extend Bivens to a “new context.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 675, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (quoting Corr. Servs. Corp. v. Malesko, 534 U.S. 61, 68, 122 S.Ct. 515, 151 L.Ed.2d 456 (2001)). Where the legal and factual components of a case fall within the “core holding of Bivens,” Malesko, 534 U.S. at 67, 122 S.Ct. 515, the context is not “new” and a Bivens action may proceed. Turkmen v. Hasty, 789 F.3d 218, 234 (2d Cir. 2015); Malesko, 534 U.S. at 67, 122 S.Ct. 515.
The claims asserted by Plaintiffs here are squarely within the holding of Bivens. In Bivens, the Supreme Court permitted a suit for damages by a plaintiff who alleged that federal law enforcement officers violated the Fourth Amendment when they entered his residence, searched through his belongings, and detained him. Bivens, 403 U.S. at 389-90, 91 S.Ct. 1999. Without qualification, the Supreme Court stated that “damages may be obtained for injuries consequent upon a violation of the Fourth Amendment by federal officials” and that, “[hjistorically, damages have been regarded as the ordinary remedy for an invasion of personal interests in liberty.” Id. at 395, 91 S.Ct. 1999. The claims at issue here — which stem from routine stops, searches, and arrests by federal law enforcement officers — fit well within this holding.
In an effort to distinguish the case at hand from Bivens, the panel’s opinion errs by defining the “context” too narrowly. Namely, the opinion makes much of the fact that Plaintiffs are undocumented immigrants rather than U.S. citizens or legal residents and that they were stopped by border patrol agents rather than some other law enforcement agency. I believe these distinctions are not only erroneous, but are at odds with existing case law from this Court
Finally, the panel’s opinion unnecessarily puts us in conflict with another Circuit. In Turkmen, the Second Circuit allowed a group of undocumented immigrants to bring Bivens claims against federal officials, stating that “a Bivens remedy is available for Plaintiffs’ ... Fourth Amendment unreasonable and punitive [ ] search[ ] claims.” 789 F.3d at 237. The court reasoned that “the Fourth Amendment is at the core of the Bivens jurisprudence, as Bivens itself concerned a Fourth Amendment claim ... for the defendants’ use of unreasonable force without probable cause, resulting in the plaintiffs unlawful arrest.” Id. The panel’s opinion in our case, however, reaches the opposite conclusion — holding that a Bivens remedy is unavailable to undocumented immigrants challenging stops and arrests in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Because I disagree with the panel’s analysis and believe that the decision to take the extraordinary step of denying Bivens remedies for routine traffic stops and arrests to an entire class of people warrants review by the entire court, I respectfully dissent from the denial of rehearing en banc.
. The panel’s opinion refers to foreign nationals present in the United States without lawful immigration status as “illegal aliens”; I choose to refer to these individuals as "undocumented immigrants” instead.
. See Martinez-Aguero v. Gonzalez, 459 F.3d 618, 620-21, 625 (5th Cir. 2006) (holding that a Mexican national who alleged that she had been illegally arrested and beaten by a border patrol agent “may bring a Bivens claim for unlawful arrest and the excessive use of force under the Fourth Amendment”). The panel’s justification for ignoring Fifth Circuit law— that the Bivens issue was not directly raised before this Court in Martinez-Aguero — is unpersuasive. As this Court has stated, “[wjhen confronting decisions of prior panels ... we are bound by 'not only the result but also those portions of the opinion necessary to that result....’” Gochicoa v. Johnson, 238 F.3d 278, 286 n. 11 (5th Cir. 2000) (quoting Seminole Tribe v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44, 67, 116 S.Ct. 1114, 134 L.Ed.2d 252 (1996)). Because we affirmed the denial of qualified immunity in Martinez-Aguero and allowed the case to proceed to trial, the availability of a Bivens remedy was necessary to the decision and is binding Fifth Circuit law.
. See, e.g., Escobar v. Gaines, No. 3-11-0994, 2014 WL 4384389, at *4 (M.D.Tenn. Sept. 4, 2014) (“The Court does not have to 'imply' a damages remedy [for undocumented immigrants challenging a raid by immigration officials] — one already exists under Bivens for damages against federal officers who violate a person’s Fourth Amendment rights.”); Morales v. Chadbourne, 996 F.Supp.2d 19, 30-34 (D.R.I. 2014) (same); Vazquez-Mentado v. Buitron, 995 F.Supp.2d 93, 97-102 (N.D.N.Y. 2014) (recognizing aliens’ Bivens claim for damages under the Fourth Amendment against the Chief Border Patrol Agent arising from the U.S. Border Patrol, Buffalo Sector's, policy "which reward[ed] USBP Buffalo Sec
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.