PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
______________
No. 10-1479
______________
MARIA ARGUETA; WALTER CHAVEZ; ANA
GALINDO; W.C., by and through his parents Walter Chavez
and Ana Galindo; ARTURO FLORES; BYBYANA ARIAS;
JUAN ONTANEDA; VERONICA COVIAS; YESICA
GUZMAN
v.
UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS
ENFORCEMENT ("ICE");
JULIE L. MYERS, Assistant Secretary for Immigration and
Customs Enforcement; JOHN P. TORRES, Deputy Assistant
Director for Operations, Immigration and Customs
Enforcement; SCOTT WEBER, Director, Office of Detention
and Removal Operations, Newark Field Office;
BARTOLOME RODRIGUEZ, Former Director, Office of
Detention
and Removal Operations, Newark Field Office; JOHN DOE
ICE AGENTS 1-60; JOHN SOE ICE SUPERVISORS 1-30;
JOHN LOE PENNS GROVE OFFICERS 1-10
Julie L. Meyers, Bartolome Rodriguez
John P. Torres, Scott Weber,
Appellants
______________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of New Jersey
(D.C. Civil No. 2-08-cv-01652-001)
District Judge: Hon. Peter G. Sheridan
______________
Argued April 14, 2011
BEFORE: FISHER, JORDAN, and COWEN, Circuit Judges
(Filed: June 14, 2011)
Gjon Juncaj, Esq.
Melanie Keiper, Esq.
Nicole Prairie, Esq.
United States Department of Justice
Office of Immigration Litigation
P.O. Box 868
Ben Franklin Station
Washington, DC 20001
Edward J. Martin, Esq.
Sarah Elisabeth Whitman, Esq.
United States Department of Justice
Torts Branch, Civil Division
P.O. Box 7146
Ben Franklin Station
Washington, DC 20044
2
Howard S. Scher, Esq. (Argued)
United States Department of Justice
Civil Division
Room 7239
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20530
Counsel for Appellants
Baher A. Azmy, Esq. (Argued)
Seton Hall Law School
833 McCarter Highway
Newark, NJ 07102
Heather Colleen Bishop, Esq.
Natalie J. Kraner, Esq.
Aurora Franceca Parrilla, Esq.
David Marshall Reiner, Esq.
R. Scott Thompson, Esq.
Scott L. Walker, Esq.
Catherine Weiss, Esq.
Kenneth H. Zimmerman, Esq.
Lowenstein Sandler
6t Livingston Avenue
Roseland, NJ 07068
Counsel for Appellees
Claire Prestel, Esq.
Public Justice
1825 K Street, N.W.
Suite 200
Washington, DC 20006
3
Counsel for Public Justice;
Prisoners‟ Rights Project of the Legal
Aid Society of the City of New York;
Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project,
Amicus Appellees
Lawrence S. Lustberg, Esq.
Gibbons
One Gateway Center
Newark, NJ 07102-5310
Counsel for LatinoJustice PRLDEF;
American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey;
Asian American Legal Defense and
Education Fund;
Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Newark,
Amicus Appellees
______________
OPINION
______________
COWEN, Circuit Judge.
Defendants Julie L. Myers, John P. Torres, Scott
Weber, and Bartolome Rodriguez (“Appellants”) appeal from
the orders of the United States District Court for the District
of New Jersey denying their motions to dismiss on qualified
immunity and personal jurisdiction grounds. This Bivens
action arises out of (in the words of the Plaintiffs‟ Second
Amended Complaint) an alleged “practice of unlawful and
4
abusive raids of immigrant homes across the state of New
Jersey” conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(“ICE”) agents under a nation-wide program instituted by the
Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) known as
“Operation Return to Sender.” (JA530.) The nine named
Plaintiffs in this action were the alleged victims of a number
of raids executed in New Jersey. On the other hand,
Appellants are or were high-ranking federal officials, and
they contend, inter alia, that the individual capacity claims for
damages against them must be dismissed pursuant to the
qualified immunity doctrine and the Supreme Court‟s ruling
in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. 1937 (2009).
We conclude that Plaintiffs failed to allege a plausible
Bivens claim against these four officials. We will reverse the
District Court‟s denial of qualified immunity (and therefore
need not—and do not—consider whether we have pendent
appellate jurisdiction over Appellants‟ appeal from the
District Court‟s personal jurisdiction ruling or whether the
District Court committed reversible error by denying the
motion to dismiss on personal jurisdiction grounds).
I.
A. The Allegations
We begin with the allegations in Plaintiffs‟ lengthy
Second Amended Complaint. The Plaintiffs named in the
Second Amended Complaint resided in New Jersey, are of
Latino origin, and were allegedly subjected to unlawful and
abusive raids conducted under Operation Return to Sender
5
sometime between August 2006 and April 2008.1 In addition
to a number of as yet unknown ICE agents and local police
officers from Penns Grove, New Jersey (who allegedly
participated in the August 1, 2006 raid of Guzman‟s house
and were the targets of several claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983
and the New Jersey Constitution), they named as Defendants:
(1) ICE; (2) Myers, who “is, and was at all relevant times, the
Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security for Immigration
and Customs Enforcement, located in Washington D.C.”
(JA534); (3) Torres, who “is Deputy Assistant Secretary for
Operations for ICE, and was at all relevant times, the Director
(or Acting Director) of the ICE Office of Detention and
Removal Operations („DRO‟) in Washington D.C.” (id.); (4)
Weber, the Director of the DRO Field Office in Newark, New
Jersey; and (5) Rodriguez, the former Acting Field Director
1
The nine Plaintiffs named in the Second Amended
Complaint were (in alphabetical order): (1) Maria Argueta,
who held lawful temporary protection status; (2) Bybyana
Arias, an American citizen; (3) Walter Chavez, a lawful
permanent resident; (4) Veronica Covias, a lawful permanent
resident; (5) Arturo Flores, an American citizen; (6) Ana
Galindo, a lawful permanent resident; (7) Yesica Guzman, a
lawful permanent resident; (8) Juan Ontaneda; and (9) W.C.,
the minor child of Chavez and Galindo and an American
citizen.
The raids allegedly took place on or about the
following dates (in chronological order): (1) August 2006
(Guzman); (2) November 13, 2006 (Flores and Arias); (3)
March 26, 2007 (Covias); (4) December 7, 2007 (Ontaneda);
(5) January 29, 2008 (Argueta); and (6) April 2, 2008
(Chavez, Galindo, and W.C.).
6
of the Newark DRO Field Office. Appellants (as well as the
unknown ICE agents) were specifically named in both their
individual and official capacities.
Myers was responsible for implementing the
Immigration and Nationality Act and administering ICE.
“ICE press releases describing arrests in New Jersey under
Operation Return to Sender have repeatedly stated that those
arrests were made pursuant to the nationwide immigration
enforcement strategy announced by defendant Myers and
Michael Chertoff, Secretary of the Department of Homeland
Security.” (JA534.) In turn, DRO is the ICE branch
responsible for coordinating “the removal of foreign nationals
not entitled to remain in the country.” (Id.) As DRO
Director, Torres oversaw the apprehension, detention, and
removal of foreign nationals charged with violating federal
immigration law, and he supervised law enforcement officers
assigned to DRO field offices and, in particular, “Fugitive
Operations Teams” (“FOTs”). (JA535.) Weber and
Rodriguez were responsible for managing ICE enforcement
activities in New Jersey, including the implementation of
Operation Return to Sender.
Plaintiffs devoted much of their pleading to an
extensive discussion of this implementation. Since 2002,
DRO has overseen the National Fugitive Operation Program.
This program was established to arrest and remove “so-called
immigration „fugitives,‟” defined by ICE as either individuals
with outstanding deportation orders or persons who failed to
report to a DRO officer after receiving notice to do so.
(JA537.) As part of increased enforcement efforts (which
allegedly included doubling the number of New Jersey FOTs
from two to four), each and every FOT in the nation was
7
allegedly ordered to arrest 1,000 fugitive aliens per year.
According to the Second Amended Complaint, “[t]his quota
represented an 800% increase on the previous quota of 125
arrests per year, mandated just two years earlier.” (JA538.)
ICE officially commenced Operation Return to Sender on
May 26, 2006, with the program purportedly directed at
apprehending fugitive aliens and especially aliens with
criminal records.
The number of individuals arrested by FOTs increased
as a result of these changes. For instance, New Jersey FOT
arrest numbers went from 1,094 in FY 2006 to 2,079 in FY
2007. Plaintiffs specifically alleged that, despite the
supposed purposes of the operation itself, “[t]he majority of
individuals arrested in New Jersey under Operation Return to
Sender . . . are neither criminals nor fugitives.” (JA542.)
Accordingly, 87% of the individuals arrested in New Jersey
in FY 2007 evidently had no criminal history, and ICE
statistics indicated that as few as one in three individuals
arrested in New Jersey was actually a fugitive alien. “The
remaining individuals arrested were a mix of undocumented
immigrants and, upon information and belief, United States
citizens, permanent residents and visa-holders who have
never had any court order, warrant, or criminal conviction
against them.” (Id.) ICE referred to these persons as
“collateral arrests,” even though this “euphemism” allegedly
“obfuscated” the reality that its enforcement activities often
served as pretexts for sweeping up large numbers of
immigrants. 2 (Id.) According to a 2007 report from the DHS
2
We note that a September 29, 2006 memorandum from
Torres, obtained by Plaintiffs after the filing of the initial
complaint, stated that “collateral” arrests could be counted
8
Inspector General, the database used to locate fugitive aliens
“is outdated and inaccurate in up to 50% of cases.” (JA531.)
The report further stated that DRO began hiring “lower-level,
less experienced officers for fugitive operations” in 2006 and
that “some fugitive operations agents have not completed the
Fugitive Operations Training Program—2004 guidelines
allow the agents to work for up to two years before receiving
necessary training.” (JA544 (citing JA242-JA311).) ICE‟s
enforcement activities were also the subject of a February 13,
2008 hearing before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on
Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and
International Law. At this hearing, an ICE representative
allegedly acknowledged that American citizens were detained
and even deported, and the chair remarked that we “had
reached an era „where an overzealous government is
interrogating, detaining and deporting its own citizens while
treating non-citizens even worse.‟” (JA543.)
Plaintiffs explained that the “practice” of unlawful and
abusive raids flourished as a predictable consequence of the
“arbitrary” and “exponentially-increased” quotas. (JA530.)
“Under pressure from these quotas immigration agents have
regularly disregarded the obligation to secure a judicial
warrant or probable cause in carrying out unlawful entries and
dragnet searches of homes in which the agents only loosely
suspect immigrant families may reside.” (Id.) Plaintiffs
alleged that their own personal experiences (also described in
some detail in their pleading) “are typical of the „Operation
Return to Sender‟ home raid modus operandi throughout the
state and the nation, which has been comprehensively
towards the alleged quota in certain circumstances.
9
documented through media reports and first-hand accounts
from other victims.” (JA531.)
Specifically, the raids allegedly violated the Fourth
and Fifth Amendments to the United States Constitution.
Due to the flaws in the database and other deficiencies, the
unconstitutional conduct allegedly began even before the
team of ICE agents arrived at a particular residence. In other
words, “[a]gents regularly raid homes where the purported
„fugitive‟ target is not present and could not be present.”
(JA531.) It is uncontested that the agents must obtain consent
in order to enter a person‟s home. According to Plaintiffs, the
agents typically failed to obtain the requisite consent.3 The
3
Among other things, Plaintiffs alleged that: (1) a home
raid typically occurred in the pre-dawn hours of the morning,
with multiple ICE agents surrounding a home believed to
house one or more immigrant families and pounding furiously
on the door and windows; (2) the agents used a variety of
frequently deceptive and even coercive tactics to get an
occupant to open the door, including (a) falsely identifying
themselves as police officers (when they were actually
administrative officers authorized to enforce federal
immigration laws but usually lacking general police powers),
(b) enlisting the aid of local police officers to deceive the
occupant as to their identities (with such misrepresentations
taking on special importance in New Jersey because state
officials encouraged immigrant populations to assist local
police without fear of immigration consequences), or (c)
simply storming into the home once the occupant opened the
door believing there was an emergency (and sometimes even
physically breaking down the door); (3) some agents treated
the raids as a “perverse sport,” as illustrated by an April 30,
10
pattern of unconstitutional conduct then allegedly continued
once the ICE agents actually entered the home.4 Plaintiffs
claimed that this whole process was then repeated at other
homes until the agents‟ van was filled. According to
2007 e-mail from a Connecticut ICE agent to a state police
trooper inviting the state troopers to an upcoming raid in New
Haven, promising a “„fun time,‟” and asking if any of “„you
guys can play‟” (JA539 (quoting JA236)); and (4) for many
agents, deceit and dishonesty became a regular part of the
raids, as demonstrated by a reported incident from Freehold,
New Jersey, in which the ICE team leader, after the occupants
refused to open the door, asked to have a marked police
vehicle pull up to the house and a uniformed police officer
knock on the door, with ICE then “tak[ing] over the
investigation‟” (JA540 (quoting JA240)).
4
Plaintiffs specifically claimed, among other things, that:
(1) multiple ICE agents typically entered and quickly swept
through the home, displaying or brandishing firearms and
even occasionally pointing their weapons at the occupants
who often were partially undressed or sitting terrified in their
night clothes; (2) they then usually ordered all of the
occupants to a central location in the home and then
interrogated them about their identities and immigration
statuses despite the lack of any reasonable basis for believing
they were not citizens and the fact that the purported target of
the raid was frequently unknown to the occupants themselves;
(3) the agents, in front of children and other family members,
handcuffed individuals they suspected were unlawfully
present in this country and marched them into a waiting van;
and (4) in some raids, the ICE agents were verbally and even
physically abusive.
11
Plaintiffs, the agents‟ actions had an especially devastating
impact on children (most of them citizens), who had to watch
“law enforcement agents sweeping through their homes with
guns, ordering them and their parents to gather together and
suddenly handcuffing and dragging away their parents in the
middle of the night.” (JA541.)
With respect to Appellants, Plaintiffs asserted that,
“[d]espite aggressively increasing the arrest quotas and the
number of agents participating in „Operation Return to
Sender,‟ and thereafter being notified—via press reports,
lawsuits, and congressional testimony—of the widespread
allegations of unconstitutional and abusive conduct by ICE
agents as part of this program, the DHS supervisory officials
named in this Complaint have continued to foster an
institutional culture of lawlessness.” (JA531-JA532.) In
short, these supervisory officials allegedly failed to develop
meaningful guidelines or oversight mechanisms to ensure that
home searches were conducted in a constitutional fashion, to
furnish their agents with adequate training (and, in the case of
some newer agents, any training whatsoever) on the lawful
execution of lawful operations, and to provide some sort of
basic accountability for violations of the Constitution.
Appellants instead “have proudly publicized the increasing
numbers of arrests made as a result of the unconstitutional
raids that continue to be carried out in the shadows and in the
dark of night.” (JA532.) Plaintiffs sought to hold
accountable “those who conducted, directed, and sanctioned
the complained-of conduct.” (Id.)
According to Plaintiffs, the “nationwide pattern and
practice” of unconstitutional conduct described above “has
been the subject of widespread media reporting as well as
12
multiple lawsuits filed in other federal district courts.”
(JA559.) Plaintiffs cited to five lawsuits, all from outside this
Circuit. (Id. (citing Barrera v. Boughton, No. 07-cv-1436 (D.
Conn. Sept. 26, 2007); Aguilar v. ICE, No. 07-cv-8224
(S.D.N.Y. Sept. 20, 2007); Flores-Morales v. George, No. 07-
cv-0050 (M.D. Tenn. July 5, 2007); Reyes v. Alcamtar, No.
07-cv-2271 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 26, 2007); Mancha v. ICE, No.
06-cv-2650 (N.D. Ga. Nov. 1, 2006)).) Members of Congress
also allegedly raised questions about the raids. In a letter
dated June 11, 2007, three legislators expressed their
concerns about reports of misconduct occurring during raids
executed in New Haven, Connecticut, on June 6, 2007 (i.e.,
ICE agents pushing their way into homes without search
warrants, inappropriately treating both adults and children,
and ultimately catching only four fugitives out of the thirty-
one arrested). The raids were also allegedly criticized in a
March 5, 2008 report by the United Nations Special
Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants. Plaintiffs
alleged that reports of raids—and related misconduct—were
especially prevalent in New Jersey, and they specifically cited
to a number of newspaper articles purportedly describing
incidents of misconduct dating from May 2006 to February
2008.
Plaintiffs included a whole section in their Second
Amended Complaint entitled “Defendants‟ Supervisory
Responsibility.” (JA561 (emphasis omitted).) In this section,
they again attempted to explain in more detail the four
Appellants‟ alleged involvement in the unconstitutional
conduct described above.
Accordingly, Plaintiffs made the following specific
allegations with respect to Myers and Torres: (1) these two
13
Appellants oversaw the implementation of a five-fold
increase in the number of FOTs between 2005 and 2007 and
approved a “remarkable” 800% increase in the arrest quota
for each team without providing the necessary training to
prevent ICE agents, who now faced new pressures from the
drastically increased quota, from acting abusively and
unlawfully (id.); (2) Myers and Torres “facilitated the
creation of a culture of lawlessness and lack of accountability
within an agency they supervise” (id.); (3) in recent years,
they “have been repeatedly on notice of the routine
unconstitutional home-raid practices by ICE agents
throughout the country,” specifically because “defendants
Myers and Torres have been sued numerous times for their
roles in these practices” (id. (citing Aguilar (Myers and
Torres); Flores-Morales (Myers); Mancha (Myers and
Torres)); (4) the National Immigration Forum sent a letter on
June 11, 2007 to Chertoff questioning the conduct of ICE
agents in the June 2007 New Haven raids; (5) Myers herself
responded to the National Immigration Forum
correspondence in a letter dated July 6, 2007, in which she
acknowledged that only five of the twenty-nine individuals
arrested in New Haven were fugitive aliens, agents routinely
lacked judicially-issued warrants and thereby had to obtain
voluntary and knowing consent before entry, and (as
emphasized by Plaintiffs) “such consent was ensured simply
by assigning a Spanish-speaking officer to each Fugitive
Operations Team” (JA562); (6) Torres possessed “direct
responsibility for the execution of fugitive operations” and,
like Myers, he was made aware of the unconstitutional home
raid practices of his subordinates through the media and
lawsuits filed against him dating back to November 2006; (7)
also like Myers, Torres received specific notice of the
misconduct in New Haven by means of a June 2007
14
telephone call from the city‟s own mayor claiming that ICE
agents “„barged into houses without warrants and verbally
abused the people and children were manhandled‟” and
asking whether “Torres‟s office should continue to allow such
home raids to be conducted with these allegations pending”
(id. (quoting JA317)); (8) despite their awareness of the
unconstitutional home raid practices through lawsuits,
Congressional inquiries, national media reports, and other
sources, Myers and Torres repeatedly failed to conduct any
meaningful investigations or provide any specific guidelines
or training to ensure that such raids satisfied constitutional
requirements and also, upon information and belief, failed to
discipline any responsible agents in a meaningful fashion; and
(9) on the contrary, Myers and Torres, “have contributed to
such unlawful conduct by continuing to publicize, and laud as
„successful,‟ their department‟s dramatic increase in
immigration arrests over the past two years” in several press
releases, and their behavior further confirmed “that the high
number of arrests were made pursuant to the nationwide
interior immigration enforcement strategy announced by
defendant Myers and Secretary Chertoff” (JA563 (citations
omitted)).5
5
Plaintiffs also submitted to the District Court a June 13,
2008 newspaper article stating that New Jersey Senator
Robert Menendez had raised serious concerns about
overzealous and biased enforcement actions, including raids
executed in New Jersey, in a meeting with Chertoff and
Myers in May 2008. However, both officials purportedly
disregarded his criticism and were “„in total denial.‟”
(JA441.)
15
Plaintiffs advanced a similar set of allegations with
respect to Weber and Rodriguez: (1) as Newark DRO Field
Office Directors, the two men were directly responsible for
overseeing fugitive operations and the execution of Operation
Return to Sender in New Jersey, and they both made frequent
reports and public comments regarding the number of arrests
and related matters; (2) “[c]omments to the media by each of
them regarding allegations of inappropriate action by their
fugitive operations personnel, including unconstitutional
home raids, suggest that defendants Rodriguez and Weber at
best acquiesced, and at worst, encouraged such behavior”
(id.); (3) for example, when Weber was confronted by the
press with specific allegations regarding a pattern of raids
conducted without search warrants or consent, he was quoted
in a newspaper article as saying that “„I don‟t see it as
storming a home . . . . We see it as trying to locate someone‟”
(JA564 (quoting Elizabeth Llorente, Immigration Officials
Say Raids On Illegals Are Within The Law, The Record
(Hackensack, N.J.), Jan. 2, 2008)); and (4) upon information
and belief, Weber and Rodriguez (a) knew that ICE agents
were entering and searching New Jersey homes without
search warrants and without the requisite consent, (b) failed
to implement any guidelines, protocols, training, oversight, or
record-keeping requirements to ensure that agents acted
within constitutional limitations, (c) failed to conduct any
substantial investigations into allegations of unconstitutional
home raids of which they were made aware or otherwise
discipline any responsible agent in a meaningful fashion, and
(d) instead simply continued to publicize the “„successful‟”
increase in arrests in New Jersey over the past two years
“while allowing the unconstitutional means for many of the
arrests to continue unchecked” (id.).
16
We come to the actual causes of action asserted by
Plaintiffs. In total, the Second Amended Complaint
contained sixteen separate claims. The various federal
Defendants, however, were only named in the first six claims.
In particular, these six Bivens claims were: (1) a claim by all
Plaintiffs for unreasonable home entries in violation of the
Fourth Amendment; (2) a claim by all Plaintiffs for
unreasonable home searches in violation of the Fourth
Amendment; (3) a claim by all Plaintiffs for unreasonable
seizures in violation of the Fourth Amendment; (4) a Fourth
Amendment claim for excessive force by Chavez, Galindo,
W.C., and Guzman; (5) a Fifth Amendment substantive due
process claim by Chavez, Galindo, W.C., and Guzman; and
(6) a Fifth Amendment equal protection claim by Ontaneda
against all federal Defendants with the sole exception of ICE.
Each of these six Bivens claims contained an
equivalent allegation specifically addressing the Appellants‟
alleged personal liability. The first claim, for instance, stated
the following: “Upon information and belief, defendants
Myers, Torres, Weber, and Rodriguez also participated in,
directed, or knew of and acquiesced in the violation of
plaintiffs‟ rights; tolerated past or ongoing misbehavior of
this kind; or were deliberately indifferent to the risk that ICE
officers, lacking clear training and under the pressure of
sharply-increased quotas, would violate the Fourth
Amendment rights of individuals suspected of being
undocumented immigrants to the United States.” (JA565.)
Finally, Plaintiffs sought relief in the form of
compensatory, consequential, and punitive damages,
attorney‟s fees, and an injunction against “all further
intimidation of plaintiffs Walter Chavez, Ana Galindo, and
17
W.C., and any and all entry into the home of plaintiffs Walter
Chavez, Ana Galindo, and W.C. absent a warrant issued by a
judicial officer or informed, voluntary consent by either
plaintiff Chavez or plaintiff Galindo.” (JA581.)
B. Procedural History and the District Court’s
Rulings
Plaintiffs filed their original Complaint on April 3,
2008, and they then filed an amended pleading on May 22,
2008. The federal Defendants moved to dismiss pursuant to
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), 12(b)(2), and
12(b)(6). On May 7, 2009, the District Court, for the most
part, denied the motion. Among other things, it specifically
“ordered that Defendants‟ motion to dismiss claims against
the Washington, D.C.-based supervisory defendants, Myers
and Torres, for lack of personal jurisdiction is denied.” (JA45
(emphasis omitted).) It further “ordered that Defendants‟
motion to dismiss claims on the ground of qualified immunity
against the four supervisory defendants, Myers, Torres,
Weber, and Rodriguez is denied without prejudice” and
allowed for “limited discovery” (in the form of interrogatories
and a single deposition of each Appellant) as well as for the
issue of qualified immunity to be raised again following this
discovery. (Id. (emphasis omitted).) In its accompanying
opinion, the District Court purported to apply the Supreme
Court‟s ruling in Bell Atlantic v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 44
(2007), to the allegations against Appellants. In short, it
concluded that Plaintiffs sufficiently alleged that Appellants
knew of and then acquiesced in the wrongdoing of their
subordinates and thereby adequately stated a claim that
Appellants possessed the degree of personal involvement
required for liability under Bivens.
18
On May 18, 2009, the Supreme Court decided Iqbal.
Appellants moved for reconsideration based on this new
opinion, and, following the filing of the Second Amended
Complaint on June 8, 2009 (which merely identified one of
the previously anonymous Plaintiffs), moved to dismiss
pursuant to Rules 12(b)(1), 12(b)(2), 12(b)(6), and 15. On
January 28, 2010, the District Court denied the motion to
dismiss without prejudice “except with respect to plaintiff
Ontaneda‟s equal protection claim which is dismissed.”
(JA64A.)
In its opinion, the District Court rejected Appellants‟
theory that the Supreme Court‟s decision worked a substantial
change in the existing law governing the qualified immunity
analysis and the liability of supervisors, at least in the specific
circumstances presented by the current proceeding. Because
Plaintiffs advanced claims under the Fourth Amendment, they
were not required to show discriminatory purpose (unlike
their counterpart in Iqbal who brought a claim of invidious
discrimination under the First and Fifth Amendments).
According to the District Court, they therefore adequately
“allege that [Appellants] had actual knowledge, initiated, and
directed their subordinate agents to go beyond the limits of
their non-judicial warrants in violation of Plaintiffs‟ Fourth
Amendment rights to be free from illegal searches and
seizures.” Argueta v. U.S. ICE, No. 08-1652, 2010 WL
398839, at *6 (D.N.J. Jan. 27, 2010). In other words, “there
are sufficient factual allegations set forth in the Complaint for
the Court, in applying its experience and common sense, to
conclude that there is a plausible claim against each
[Appellant] that their personal involvement, direction and
knowledge or acquiescence permitted a search of the
residence of plaintiffs without consent in violation of the
19
Fourth Amendment.” Id. at *9. The District Court, however,
did explain that Iqbal mandated the dismissal of the equal
protection claim advanced by Ontaneda because Plaintiffs
conceded that there was no direct evidence of any purposeful
discrimination.
Appellants filed a timely notice of appeal. We
subsequently allowed for the filing of two amicus briefs in
support of Plaintiffs and the District Court‟s rulings, which
were submitted by: (1) Amici Curiae Public Justice, the
Prisoners‟ Rights Project of the Legal Aid Society of the City
of New York, and the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project;
and (2) Amici Curiae LatinoJustice PRLDEF, the American
Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, the Asian American
Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Catholic Charities of
the Archdiocese of Newark.
II.
The District Court possessed subject matter
jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1343.
Plaintiffs agree that this Court has appellate jurisdiction over
Appellants‟ appeal from the District Court‟s qualified
immunity rulings pursuant to the collateral order doctrine. In
Iqbal, the Supreme Court determined that the denial of a
motion to dismiss on qualified immunity grounds filed by the
United States Attorney General and the FBI Director
constituted an appealable collateral order. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at
1945-47. Pursuant to Iqbal, our appellate jurisdiction extends
beyond merely determining whether the complaint avers a
clearly established constitutional violation, and we also have
the power to consider the sufficiency of the complaint itself.
Id. at 1946-47. “[W]hether a particular complaint sufficiently
20
alleges a clearly established violation of law cannot be
decided in isolation from the facts pleaded.” Id. at 1946.
Accordingly, “the sufficiency of [a plaintiff‟s] pleadings is
both „inextricably intertwined with‟ and „directly implicated
by‟ the qualified immunity defense.” Id. at 1946-47 (citations
omitted). Because we dispose of this appeal on qualified
immunity grounds, we need not—and do not—decide
whether we also possess pendent appellate jurisdiction as to
the District Court‟s denial of the motion to dismiss the
individual capacity claims against Myers and Torres on
personal jurisdiction grounds. We exercise plenary review
over the District Court‟s qualified immunity rulings. See,
e.g., Santiago v. Warminster Township, 629 F.3d 121, 128
(3d Cir. 2010); Atkinson v. Taylor, 316 F.3d 257, 261 (3d
Cir. 2003).
III.
In Bivens v. Six Unknown Federal Narcotics Agents,
403 U.S. 388 (1971), the Supreme Court “„recognized for the
first time an implied private action for damages against
federal officers alleged to have violated a citizen‟s
constitutional rights.‟” Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1947-48 (quoting
Corr. Servs. Corp. v. Malesko, 534 U.S. 61, 66 (2001)). It is
also well established that government officials are immune
from liability for damages where their conduct “does not
violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of
which a reasonable person would have known.” Harlow v.
Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982) (citations omitted).
In this case, Plaintiffs never alleged in their Second
Amended Complaint that Appellants actually adopted a
facially unconstitutional policy. For instance, they did not
claim that Appellants, as part of Operation Return to Sender,
21
ever ordered ICE agents to storm into homes without
obtaining the requisite consent. Plaintiffs instead claimed that
these four individuals should be held accountable because,
among other things, they knew of—and nevertheless
acquiesced in—the unconstitutional conduct of their
subordinates. The District Court determined that Plaintiffs
could pursue a claim under the Fourth Amendment based on a
“knowledge and acquiescence” theory because the Fourth
Amendment does not require proof of a discriminatory or
unlawful purpose (and it further concluded that Appellants
adequately alleged such a claim in their pleading). In
response, Appellants have argued that: (1) at least after Iqbal,
“knowledge and acquiescence,” “failure to train,” and similar
theories of supervisory liability are not viable in the Bivens
context and, on the contrary, a supervisor may be held liable
only for his or her direct participation in the unconstitutional
conduct; and (2) even under such now defunct theories of
liability, Plaintiffs failed to allege a facially plausible Bivens
claim against Appellants.
We recently observed that “[n]umerous courts,
including this one, have expressed uncertainty as to the
viability and scope of supervisory liability after Iqbal.”
Santiago, 629 F.3d at 130 n.8 (citing Bayer v. Monroe Cnty.
Children & Youth Servs., 577 F.3d 186, 190 n.5 (3d Cir.
2009); Dodds v. Richardson, 614 F.3d 1185, 1194 (10th Cir.
2010); Parrish v. Ball, 594 F.3d 993, 1001 (8th Cir. 2010)).
To date, we have refrained from answering the question of
whether Iqbal eliminated—or at least narrowed the scope
of—supervisory liability because it was ultimately
unnecessary to do so in order to dispose of the appeal then
before us. Id.; Bayer, 577 F.3d at 190 n.5. We likewise make
the same choice here because we determine that Plaintiffs
22
failed to allege a plausible claim to relief on the basis of the
supervisors‟ “knowledge and acquiescence” or any other
similar theory of liability. Accordingly, we need not (and do
not) decide whether Appellants are correct that a supervisor
may be held liable in the Bivens context only if he or she
directly participates in unconstitutional conduct.
A. Iqbal, Liability of Supervisors, and Pleading
Standards
We begin our analysis with the Supreme Court‟s own
recent opinion in Iqbal. This case arose out of the federal
government‟s response to the terrorist attacks on September
11, 2001, which the Court characterized as “„a national and
international security emergency unprecedented in the history
of the American Republic.‟” Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1953
(citation omitted).
The FBI and other entities within the Department of
Justice began a massive investigation to identify the
perpetrators and prevent any further attacks. Id. at 1943. A
subset of 184 high-interest detainees were identified and held
under special restrictions designed to prevent communication
with either the general prison population or the outside world.
Id. Iqbal, a citizen of Pakistan and a Muslim (who was
arrested on immigration-related charges, pled guilty, and was
eventually deported), was one of these high-interest detainees.
Id. “The defendants [in his Bivens action] range from the
correctional officers who had day-to-day contact with
respondent during the term of his confinement, to the wardens
of the MDC facility, all the way to petitioners [then-Attorney
General Ashcroft and FBI Director Mueller]—officials who
were at the highest level of the federal law enforcement
23
hierarchy.” Id. (citations omitted). The complaint
specifically alleged that “„the [FBI], under the direction of
Defendant MUELLER, arrested and detained thousands of
Arab Muslim men . . . as part of its investigation of the events
of September 11,‟” and “„[t]he policy of holding post-
September 11th detainees in highly restrictive conditions of
confinement until they were „cleared‟ by the FBI was
approved by Defendants ASHCROFT and MUELLER in
discussions in the weeks after September 11, 2001.‟” Id. at
1944 (alteration in original) (citations omitted). The pleading
posited that the two officials “„each knew of, condoned, and
willfully and maliciously agreed to subject‟ respondent to
harsh conditions of confinement „as a matter of policy, solely
on account of [his] religion, race, and/or national origin and
for no legitimate penological interest.‟” Id. (alteration in
original) (citation omitted). Finally, Ashcroft was named as
the policy‟s “„principal architect,‟” and Mueller was
identified as being “„instrumental in [its] adoption,
promulgation, and implementation.‟” Id. (alteration in
original) (citations omitted).
Ashcroft and Mueller unsuccessfully moved to dismiss
the complaint for failure to include sufficient allegations
showing their own involvement in clearly established
unconstitutional conduct. Id. The Second Circuit affirmed
this denial, but the Supreme Court reversed. Id. at 1944-45.
Following the example it set in Twombly, the Supreme
Court indicated that, in order to assess the sufficiency of a
complaint, it is first necessary to consider the underlying legal
principles and elements implicated by the complaint. Id. at
1948. “In the limited settings where Bivens does apply, the
implied cause of action is the „federal analog to suits brought
24
against state officials under . . . § 1983.‟” Id. (quoting
Hartman v. Moore, 547 U.S. 250, 254 n.2 (2006)). It was
therefore correct, the Court noted, for Iqbal to “concede[] that
Government officials may not be held liable for the
unconstitutional conduct of their subordinates under a theory
of respondeat superior.” Id. (citing, inter alia, Monell v. N.Y.
City Dep‟t of Social Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 691 (1978);
Dunlop v. Munroe, 7 Cranch 242, 269, 3 L. Ed. 329 (1812);
Robertson v. Sichel, 127 U.S. 507, 515-16 (1888)). The
Court accordingly stated that, “[b]ecause vicarious liability is
inapplicable to Bivens and § 1983 suits, a plaintiff must plead
that each Government-official defendant, through the
official‟s own individual actions, has violated the
Constitution.” Id. The Iqbal Court ultimately observed that
“[i]n a § 1983 suit or a Bivens action—where masters do not
answer for the torts of their servants—the term „supervisory
liability‟ is a misnomer.” Id. at 1949.
As did Iqbal, Plaintiffs here admit that Appellants may
not be held personally liable for damages pursuant to a
respondeat superior or vicarious liability theory, and the
District Court likewise acknowledged as much in its rulings.
It is uncontested that a government official is liable only for
his or her own conduct and accordingly must have had some
sort of personal involvement in the alleged unconstitutional
conduct. The District Court, in turn, dismissed Ontaneda‟s
equal protection claim because there was no evidence that
Appellants possessed the discriminatory intent required by
Iqbal, and Plaintiffs themselves do not challenge this
dismissal on appeal. However, as noted above, we assume
for purposes of this appeal that a federal supervisory official
may be liable in certain circumstances even though he or she
25
did not directly participate in the underlying unconstitutional
conduct.
The District Court specifically concluded that a Fourth
Amendment claim does not require a showing of a
discriminatory purpose and that Plaintiffs could therefore
proceed under a “knowledge and acquiescence” theory.
Plaintiffs acknowledge that the “terminology” used to
describe “supervisory liability” is “often mixed.” (Appellees‟
Brief at 21.) They contend that a supervisor may be held
liable in certain circumstances for a failure to train, supervise,
and discipline subordinates. See, e.g., Chinchello v. Fenton,
805 F.2d 126, 132-34 (3d Cir. 1986) (applying § 1983 case
law in evaluating and rejecting Bivens claim for failure to
train, supervise, and discipline). We accordingly stated in a §
1983 action that “[p]ersonal involvement can be shown
through allegations of personal direction or of actual
knowledge and acquiescence.” Rode v. Dellarciprete, 845
F.2d 1195, 1207 (3d Cir. 1988); see also, e.g., Santiago, 629
F.3d at 129 (“Instead, Santiago‟s allegations appear to invoke
a theory of liability under which „a supervisor may be
personally liable . . . if he or she participated in violating the
plaintiff‟s rights, directed others to violate them, or, as the
person in charge, had knowledge of and acquiesced in his
subordinates‟ violations.‟” (quoting A.M. ex rel. J.M.K. v.
Luzerne Cnty. Juvenile Det. Ctr., 372 F.3d 572, 586 (3d Cir.
2004)) (footnote omitted)). “It is also possible to establish
section 1983 supervisory liability by showing a supervisor
tolerated past or ongoing misbehavior.” Baker v. Monroe
Township, 50 F.3d 1186, 1191 n.3 (3d Cir. 1995) (citing
Stoneking v. Bradford Area Sch. Dist., 882 F.2d 720, 724-25
(3d Cir. 1989)). We further indicated that a supervisor may
be liable under § 1983 if he or she implements a policy or
26
practice that creates an unreasonable risk of a constitutional
violation on the part of the subordinate and the supervisor‟s
failure to change the policy or employ corrective practices is
a cause of this unconstitutional conduct. See, e.g., Brown v.
Muhlenberg Township, 269 F.3d 205, 216 (3d Cir. 2001).
Having considered the legal framework implicated by
Iqbal‟s complaint, the Supreme Court turned to the complaint
itself. “Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2), a
pleading must contain a „short and plain statement of the
claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.‟” Iqbal,
129 S. Ct. at 1949. While detailed factual allegations are not
required, the pleading must include more than “an unadorned,
the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation,” “„labels
and conclusions,‟” “„a formulaic recitation of the elements of
a cause of action,‟” or “„naked assertion[s].‟” Id. (alteration
in original) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555, 557).
Accordingly, the basic principle that a court must accept all
allegations as true is inapplicable to either legal conclusions
or “[t]hreadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action,
supported by mere conclusory statements.” Id. (citing
Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555). Instead, “a complaint must
contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to „state a
claim to relief that is plausible on its face.‟” Id. (quoting
Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570). “A claim has facial plausibility
when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court
to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable
for the misconduct alleged.” Id. (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at
556). This “plausibility” standard does not require
probability, but it does demand more than a sheer possibility
that the defendant acted unlawfully. Id. Therefore, a
complaint pleading facts that are merely consistent with
liability is insufficient. Id.
27
Following Twombly, the Supreme Court in Iqbal
offered a multi-prong approach for determining whether a
pleading meets the plausibility requirement. After identifying
the elements that a plaintiff must plead to state a legally
cognizable cause of action, see, e.g., Santiago, 629 F.3d at
130 & n.7, a court “can choose to begin by identifying
pleadings that, because they are no more than conclusions, are
not entitled to the assumption of truth” (although they may
provide a helpful framework for the complaint), Iqbal, 129 S.
Ct. at 1950. “When there are well-pleaded factual
allegations, a court should assume their veracity and then
determine whether they plausibly give rise to an entitlement
to relief.” Id.
Applying that approach, the Court determined that
Iqbal‟s complaint “has not „nudged [his] claims‟ of invidious
discrimination „across the line from conceivable to
plausible.‟” Id. at 1950-51 (alteration in original) (quoting
Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570). It explained that certain
conclusory and formulaic allegations were not entitled to any
assumption of truth (specifically the allegation that Ashcroft
and Mueller knew of, condoned, and maliciously agreed to
subject Iqbal to harsh conditions of confinement as a matter
of policy solely on account of his religion, race, or national
origin, and the respective characterizations of Ashcroft as the
“„principal architect‟” of this invidious policy as well as of
Mueller as being “„instrumental‟” in the policy‟s adoption
and execution). Id. at 1951 (citations omitted). The Court
then explained that the remaining factual allegations in the
pleadings (specifically that the FBI, under the direction of
Mueller, arrested and detained thousands of Arab Muslim
men as part of the investigation and that the policy of holding
detainees in highly restrictive conditions until cleared by the
28
FBI was approved by Ashcroft and Mueller in discussions in
the weeks following the terrorist attack) were consistent with
Ashcroft and Mueller acting on the basis of race, religion, or
national origin. Id. But, “given more likely explanations,
they do not plausibly establish this purpose.” Id. The Iqbal
Court specifically noted, among other things, the specific
circumstances that confronted the nation‟s highest-ranking
law enforcement officers in the wake of a devastating and
unprecedented attack. Id. at 1951-52.
The Supreme Court also expressly rejected Iqbal‟s
theory that the pleading standards should be tempered where
discovery purportedly was to be structured in such a way as to
preserve the qualified immunity defense. Id. at 1953-54.
Instead, it emphasized that the “basic thrust” of qualified
immunity is to free officials from the concerns and burdens of
litigation, including discovery. Id. at 1954 (citation omitted).
“If a Government official is to devote time to his or her
duties, and to the formulation of sound and responsible
policies, it is counterproductive to require the substantial
diversion that is attendant to participating in litigation and
making informed decisions as to how it should proceed.” Id.
The Court emphasized that such “costs are only magnified
when Government officials are charged with responding to . .
. „a national and international emergency unprecedented in
the history of the American Republic.‟” Id. (citation
omitted). Ultimately, the Supreme Court believed that the
elusive promise of minimally intrusive discovery furnished
“especially cold comfort” in light of the need to “give real
content to the concept of qualified immunity for high-level
officials who must be neither deterred nor detracted from the
vigorous performance of their duties.” Id. at 1954.
29
B. The Sufficiency of Plaintiffs’ Second Amended
Complaint
Having addressed the legal elements that a plaintiff
must plead to state a legally cognizable claim, we turn to the
remaining steps identified by Iqbal: (1) identifying those
allegations that, because they are no more than conclusions,
are not entitled to any assumption of truth; and (2) then
determining whether the well-pleaded factual allegations
plausibly give rise to an entitlement to relief. See, e.g., Iqbal,
129 S. Ct. at 1950; Santiago, 629 F.3d at 129-30. We
acknowledge that Plaintiffs filed an extensive and carefully
drafted pleading, which certainly contained a number of
troubling allegations especially with respect to alleged
unconstitutional behavior on the part of lower-ranking ICE
agents. Plaintiffs are also correct that, even after Iqbal, we
must continue to accept all factual allegations as true,
construe the complaint in the light most favorable to the
plaintiff, and then determine whether a reasonable inference
may be drawn that the defendant is liable for the alleged
misconduct. See, e.g., Fowler v. UMPC Shadyside, 578 F.3d
203, 210 (3d Cir. 2009). We also recognize that Iqbal made it
clear that courts must determine whether the complaint as a
whole contains sufficient factual matter to state a facially
plausible claim and that such a plausibility requirement “is
not akin to a „probability requirement.‟” Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at
1949; see also, e.g., Matrixx Initiatives, Inc. v. Siracusano,
131 S. Ct. 1309, 1322-25 (2011). Nevertheless, we
ultimately conclude that, like Iqbal, Plaintiffs failed to allege
a plausible Bivens claim against the four Appellants.
Initially, certain allegations in the Second Amended
Complaint were conclusory in nature and merely provided, at
30
best, a “framework” for the otherwise appropriate factual
allegations. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1950. For instance, the broad
allegations regarding the existence of a “culture of
lawlessness” are accorded little if any weight in our analysis.
(See JA532, JA561.) We further note that the relevant counts
in the pleading contained boilerplate allegations mimicking
the purported legal standards for liability, which we do not
assume to be true. We also must reject certain broad
characterizations made by the District Court, which were not
supported by either the actual factual allegations in the
Second Amended Complaint or reasonable inferences from
such allegations. Most significantly, the District Court went
too far by stating that Myers and Torres “worked on these
issues everyday.” Argueta, 2010 WL 398839, at *8.
Turning to the non-conclusory factual allegations in
the Second Amended Complaint, we begin with the critical
issue of notice. Plaintiffs did reference an impressive amount
of documentation that allegedly provided notice to Appellants
of their subordinates‟ unconstitutional conduct. However,
these alleged sources of notice were fatally flawed in one way
or another. Broadly speaking, we must point out the typical
“notice” case seems to involve a prior incident or incidents of
misconduct by a specific employee or group of employees,
specific notice of such misconduct to their superiors, and then
continued instances of misconduct by the same employee or
employees. The typical case accordingly does not involve a
“knowledge and acquiescence” claim premised, for instance,
on reports of subordinate misconduct in one state followed by
misconduct by totally different subordinates in a completely
different state. Although there were some New Jersey-
specific allegations in the Second Amended Complaint, we
are generally confronted here with an attack on the alleged
31
misconduct of numerous ICE agents at different raids
executed across the country over a period of years. As
Appellants further point out, the court cases specifically cited
in Plaintiffs‟ pleading either did not involve individual
capacity claims against Myers and Torres, were filed after at
least some of the New Jersey raids specifically alleged in the
Second Amended Complaint took place, or did not even
involve Operation Return to Sender. All of these cases were
also filed outside of New Jersey, and certain other alleged
sources of notice implicated raids that took place in other
states, especially in New Haven, Connecticut. Likewise,
some alleged sources (like the February 2008 hearing and the
March 2008 UN report) post-dated most of the specific New
Jersey raids that allegedly harmed Plaintiffs themselves. In
the end, we conclude that Plaintiffs did not plausibly allege
that the Appellants had legally sufficient notice of the
underlying unconstitutional conduct of their subordinates.
Second, we observe that allegations specifically
directed against Appellants themselves (unlike the allegations
directed at the agents who actually carried out the raids)
described conduct consistent with otherwise lawful behavior.
See, e.g., Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1950. In other words, a federal
official specifically charged with enforcing federal
immigration law appears to be acting lawfully when he or she
increases arrest goals, praises a particular enforcement
operation as a success, or characterizes a home entry and
search as an attempt to locate someone (i.e., a fugitive alien).
In fact, the qualified immunity doctrine exists to encourage
vigorous and unflinching enforcement of the law. See, e.g.,
id. at 1953-54. We add that, far from adopting a facially
unconstitutional policy or expressly ordering ICE agents to
engage in unconstitutional home entries and searches, Myers
32
clearly stated in her response to the National Immigration
Forum correspondence that agents were required to obtain
consent before entering private residences and that all
allegations of misconduct were taken seriously and fully
investigated (and that, among other things, similar statements
were made by Weber in connection with his “„[w]e see it as
trying to locate someone” comment to the press).
We also agree with Appellants‟ assertion that Plaintiffs
themselves did not really identify in their pleading what
exactly Appellants should have done differently, whether
with respect to specific training programs or other matters,
that would have prevented the unconstitutional conduct. See,
e.g., Beers-Capitol v. Whetzel, 256 F.3d 120, 134 (3d Cir.
2001); Sample v. Diecks, 885 F.2d 1099, 1118 (3d Cir. 1989).
For instance, the Inspector General‟s report, emphasized in
the Second Amended Complaint, actually stated that all FOT
members were required to complete a special three-week
basic training course within two years of their assignment,
most officers had completed the requisite training, and, in any
case, all team members had previously undergone some form
of basic law enforcement training (which presumably would
have covered basic principles governing, among other things,
the entry into a private residence without a judicial warrant).
Far from recommending a complete training overhaul, the
Inspector General ultimately recommended a “refresher
course,” and ICE accepted this recommendation. (JA277.)
We also cannot overlook the fact that Appellants
themselves occupied relatively high-ranking positions in the
federal hierarchy. Following the example set by the District
Court, Plaintiffs assert that Appellants cannot be compared
with Attorney General Ashcroft, who held the highest
33
position in the federal law enforcement hierarchy. They add
that the Iqbal Court emphasized that both Ashcroft and
Mueller had to make quick policy decisions to respond to an
unprecedented national emergency, while, on the other hand,
Appellants oversaw Operation Return to Sender over a
number of years. We certainly acknowledge that it is crucial
to consider context and the particular circumstances of each
and every case. See, e.g., Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1950.
However, the context here involved, at the very least, two
very high-ranking federal officials based in Washington D.C.
who were charged with supervising the enforcement of
federal immigration law throughout the country (as well as
two other officials responsible for supervising such
enforcement throughout an entire state). Appellants
accordingly note that Myers and FBI Director Mueller
reported directly to their respective agency heads (the
Secretary of Homeland Security and the Attorney General),
were appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate,
and were responsible for setting national and international
polices. In fact, it appears uncontested that Myers and Torres
oversaw an agency with more than 15,000 employees and a
budget of more than $3.1 billion.
In Rode v. Dellarciprete, 845 F.2d 1195 (3d Cir.
1988), a civilian employee of the Pennsylvania State Police
filed a civil rights action under § 1983 and 42 U.S.C. § 1985
against several defendants, including Pennsylvania Governor
Thornburgh and Attorney General Zimmerman, id. at 1197-
98. Among other things, she alleged that she was a victim of
unlawful retaliation in the form of an unlawful work
suspension and impermissible changes in her duties and
working conditions. Id. Affirming the district court‟s
dismissal of her claims against these two state officials, this
34
Court specifically determined that she failed “to allege
knowledge and acquiescence with the required particularity”
as to her claim against the Governor. Id. at 1208. We
observed that “Rode‟s assertion that the Governor had
„responsibility for supervising‟ the other defendants is
irrelevant.” Id. We then expressly rejected her “hypothesis”
that the Governor had personal knowledge of the retaliation
“directed against Hileman [Rode‟s co-plaintiff] because of
numerous articles that appeared in newspapers throughout the
state and through the introduction of a legislative resolution
seeking an investigation into racially motivated retaliation
against [Pennsylvania State Police] employees, the filing of
grievances with the Governor‟s office of administration, and
telephone calls and correspondence with the office of the
Lieutenant Governor.” Id. In the end, we concluded that,
“[i]n a large state employing many thousands of employees, a
contrary holding would subject the Governor to potential
liability in any case in which an aggrieved employee merely
transmitted a complaint to the Governor‟s office of
administration or to the Lieutenant Governor‟s office.” Id.
We add that the Ninth Circuit reached the same result
in a recent post-Iqbal decision. In al-Kidd v. Ashcroft, 580
F.3d 949 (9th Cir. 2009), rev‟d on other grounds, --- S. Ct. ---,
2011 WL 2119110 (May 31, 2011), the Ninth Circuit
expressly rejected a “conditions of confinement” claim
against Ashcroft brought by an individual detained under the
material witness statute following September 11 because “the
complaint does not allege any specific facts—such as
statements from Ashcroft or from high-ranking officials in the
DOJ—establishing that Ashcroft had personal involvement in
setting the conditions of confinement.” Id. at 978. The Ninth
Circuit acknowledged that al-Kidd made several allegations
35
regarding media reports and other sources of information
describing the conditions of confinement, but it then
explained that “the non-specific allegations in the complaint
regarding Ashcroft‟s involvement fail to nudge the possible to
the plausible, as required by Twombly.” Id. at 978-79; see
also, e.g., Santiago, 629 F.3d at 134 (concluding that
“allegation that Lt. Springfield was placed in charge of the
operation, coupled with what happened during the operation,
[failed to make it] plausible that Lt. Springfield knew of and
acquiesced in the use of excessive force against Santiago.”).
We acknowledge that the specific circumstances
presented in this prior case law may be distinguishable in one
way or another. For instance, the appointed head of a federal
agency, charged with enforcing the law and specifically
implementing a particular enforcement operation, clearly
possessed different responsibilities than the elected governor
of a state. See, e.g., Atkinson, 316 F.3d at 270-71
(distinguishing state correctional commissioner and lower-
ranking officials from governor and state attorney general).
However, we cannot overlook the marked similarities
between the allegations at issue here and the allegations
deemed to be insufficient in Rode and al-Kidd. Furthermore,
we again note that Myers and Torres, in particular, had
national and even international policymaking and supervisory
responsibilities. In the end, we believe that this prior case law
supports our conclusion that Plaintiffs failed to meet the
plausibility requirement.6
6
We further note that the Supreme Court‟s recent ruling in
Matrixx Initiatives, Inc. v. Siracusano, 131 S. Ct. 1309
(2011), does not alter our conclusion in the current matter.
The Court considered a motion to dismiss a securities fraud
36
Finally, we wish to emphasize that our ruling here
does not leave Plaintiffs without any legal remedy for the
alleged violation of the United States Constitution. Chavez,
Galindo, and W.C. are still free to pursue their official
capacity claims for injunctive relief against any further
intimidation or unlawful entry into their home. Also, we do
not address Plaintiffs‟ individual capacity claims for damages
against the lower-ranking ICE agents named in the Second
Amended Complaint. See, e.g., Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1952 (“It
is important to note, however, that we express no opinion
concerning the sufficiency of respondent‟s complaint against
the defendants who are not before us. Respondent‟s account
of his prison ordeal alleges serious official misconduct that
we need not address here. Our decision is limited to the
determination that respondent‟s complaint does not entitle
him to relief from petitioners [Ashcroft and Mueller].”).
IV.
For the foregoing reasons, we will reverse the District
Court‟s order denying the motion to dismiss the individual
capacity claims for damages against Appellants on qualified
immunity grounds. We will remand for further proceedings
consistent with our opinion.
claim against a pharmaceutical company for its alleged failure
to disclose reports of adverse events associated with one of its
drugs. Id. at 1313-25. Unlike in Iqbal, the Matrixx Court did
not address a Bivens action against high-ranking federal
officials. Id.
37