[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit [official website] Tuesday dismissed [decision, PDF] a lawsuit brought by Canadian citizen Maher Arar [advocacy website; JURIST news archive], who sought a declaratory judgment against US government officials for deporting him to Syria. The court ruled that Arar had failed to state a claim for which it had jurisdiction to grant relief:

We do not doubt that if Congress were so inclined, it could exercise its powers under the Constitution to authorize a cause of action for money damages to redress the type of claims asserted by Arar in this action. The fact remains, however, that Congress has not done so. Instead, it has chosen to establish a remedial process that does not include a cause of action for damages against US officials for injuries arising from the exercise of their discretionary authority to remove inadmissible aliens. We are not free to be indifferent to the determinations of Congress, or to ignore the Supreme Court's instructions to exercise great caution when considering whether to devise new and heretofore unknown, causes of action.