Lawyer: Arar ruling enables govt. to send foreigners to torture

A United States appeals court decision upholding the dismissal of a lawsuit from Canadian Maher Arar essentially enables the US government to send foreigners to be tortured, a lawyer with a human rights group representing Arar said on June 30. "It means that the US can do to anyone what they did to Maher," said Maria LaHood, a senior attorney with the US-based Center for Constitutional Rights. "They can do it to anyone, to any foreign citizen, and use the immigration process as a guise, basically, to send someone to be tortured." "It's a quite sweeping and reprehensible opinion," said LaHood. "It's quite sweeping in how much deference it gives to the US government." LaHood spoke with Arar and said he is equally taken aback by the decision. "He was not only disappointed too, but outraged," she said. "He's rightfully angered that he cannot get justice, and that not only can he not get justice, but that his being sent to torture has now been in vain because he can't even stop the government from doing it to someone else." The 2-1 ruling also said that Arar, as a foreigner who had not been formally admitted to the US, had no constitutional due process rights. "We are deeply disappointed," David Cole, a Center for Constitutional Rights board member, said in a statement. "The Supreme Court earlier this month held that the Constitution protects foreign nationals held as 'enemy combatants' at Guantanamo, yet the Second Circuit has ruled that a Canadian changing planes at JFK has no constitutional right to object to being spirited away to Syria to be tortured."