“More and more Americans who have done nothing wrong find themselves unable to fly, and in some cases unable to return to the U.S., without any explanation whatsoever from the government,” said Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. “A secret list that deprives people of the right to fly and places them into effective exile without any opportunity to object is both un-American and unconstitutional.”
The ACLU of New Mexico joined the national ACLU and its affiliates in Oregon, Southern California, and Northern California in filing the lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI and the Terrorist Screening Center in U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon. The plaintiffs on the case are:
- Steven Washburn, a U.S. citizen born and raised in Las Cruces, NM and a U.S. Air Force veteran who was prevented from flying from Europe to the United States or Mexico; he eventually flew to Brazil, from there to Peru, and from there to Mexico, where he was detained and finally escorted across the border by U.S. and Mexican officials;
- Ayman Latif, a U.S. citizen and disabled Marine veteran living in Egypt who has been barred from flying to the United States and, as a result, cannot take a required Veterans’ Administration disability evaluation;
- Raymond Earl Knaeble, a U.S. citizen and U.S. Army veteran who is stuck in Santa Marta, Colombia after being denied boarding on a flight to the United States;
- Samir Mohamed Ahmed Mohamed, Abdullatif Muthanna, Nagib Ali Ghaleb and Saleh A. Omar, three American citizens and a lawful permanent resident of the United States who were prevented from flying home to the U.S. after visiting family members in Yemen;
- Mohamed Sheikh Abdirahman Kariye, a U.S. citizen and resident of Portland, Oregon who was prevented from flying to visit his daughter who is in high school in Dubai;
- Adama Bah, a citizen of Guinea who was granted political asylum in the United States, where she has lived since she was two, who was barred from flying from New York to Chicago for work; and
- Halime Sat, a German citizen and lawful permanent resident of the United States who lives in California with her U.S.-citizen husband who was barred from flying from Long Beach, California to Oakland to attend a conference and has since had to cancel plane travel to participate in educational programs and her family reunion in Germany.
“Without a reasonable way for people to challenge their inclusion on the list, there’s no way to keep innocent people off it,” said Nusrat Choudhury, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. “The government’s decision to prevent people from flying without giving them a chance to defend themselves has a huge impact on people’s lives – including their ability to perform their jobs, see their families and, in the case of U.S. citizens, to return home to the United States from abroad.”
“The right to move freely for work and to visit family members should never be denied without due process,” said Peter Simonson, Executive Director of the ACLU of New Mexico. “Because of secret no-fly lists, Las Cruces native and U.S. Air Force veteran Steven Washburn was put through a costly, distressing ordeal and to this day doesn’t know the reason why.”
In addition to Wizner and Choudhury, attorneys on the case are Kevin Díaz and cooperating attorney Steven Wilker with the ACLU of Oregon; Ahilan Arulanantham, Jennie Pasquarella and cooperating attorney Reem Salahi with the ACLU of Southern California; Alan Schlosser and Julia Harumi Mass of the ACLU of Northern California; and Laura Ives of the ACLU of New Mexico.
