WASHINGTON — Seizing on allegations of federal law enforcement officials’ committing constitutional violations as part of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, Democrats have launched a new effort to allow civil rights claims against rogue agents.
Lawmakers reintroduced legislation Tuesday that would ensure federal officials, including immigration agents and other law enforcement officers, can be sued individually for constitutional violations.
The bill, introduced in the House and the Senate by Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., would amend a post-Civil War-era law that allows such claims against state and local officials to make it clear that federal officials are covered, too.
“Under this lawless administration, federal officers are using excessive force and violating constitutional rights in our streets with impunity,” Johnson said in a statement. “If federal officials violate the Constitution, they should be held accountable, full stop.”
The legislation also comes as Republican senators have come under fire for including a provision in the bill that ended the government shutdown that would allow eight GOP senators to sue the Justice Department after their cellphone records were obtained without their knowledge.
Since Trump began his second term in January, his administration has launched an aggressive immigration crackdown. Civil rights groups charge that agents have regularly committed constitutional violations by, among other things, using excessive force or carrying out allegedly unlawful entries.
A judge in Chicago issued an injunction this month that restricts federal agents’ use of force in response to such allegations.
While the focus is ostensibly on immigrants who entered the country illegally, legal residents and some U.S. citizens have also been swept up. Federal officers have also been involved in clashes with protesters.
The Supreme Court in 1971 ruled in a case called Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents that federal agents could be sued individually, but the court has since retreated from that finding. In a 2022 ruling, it specifically said Border Patrol agents cannot be individually sued for violating someone’s constitutional rights.
In the 12 months after that ruling, lower courts cited it 228 times in a variety of cases against all kinds of federal officials, NBC News found in a 2023 investigation. In 195 of those cases, constitutional claims were dismissed.
The legislation, which has been introduced in the past but made little progress, “would reopen the courthouse doors to these victims and encourage more responsible conduct by federal officials,” Whitehouse said in a statement.
Under current law, people can sue the federal government directly under a law called the Federal Tort Claims Act, but damages there are limited, and there is no chance of a jury trial.
