A federal court in Chicago has dismissed a lawsuit against the U.S. government over its evacuation procedures for Palestinian-Americans stranded in Gaza. Chief Judge Virginia Kendall of the U.S. District Court acknowledged the plaintiffs’ dire circumstances but ruled that the judiciary lacks both the authority and the diplomatic resources to evaluate or mandate executive branch foreign policy decisions, particularly those involving wartime evacuations.
The legal action, initiated in December 2024 by nine Palestinian-Americans with support from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and attorney Maria Kari, accused the Biden administration of violating constitutional equal protection rights. The plaintiffs argued that the government abandoned them and their families during the ongoing conflict, failing to implement standard evacuation protocols that would be extended to other U.S. citizens abroad.
Despite expressing sympathy for the plaintiffs’ ‘impossible positions,’ Judge Kendall’s ruling emphasized the constitutional separation of powers. She stated that determining the ‘when, how, and under what circumstances evacuations from war zones should proceed’ is a duty committed to the executive and legislative branches, not the judiciary.
The court noted evidence indicating that the U.S. government had developed an evacuation plan and that all nine plaintiffs had either been successfully evacuated or had declined offers that did not include their immediate family members. The State Department had previously reported assisting over 1,600 individuals, including citizens and eligible family members, in leaving Gaza via the Rafah crossing, though the criteria for evacuation were narrowly defined to include only spouses, parents, and unmarried children under 21.
The dismissal highlights the complex and often restrictive process for evacuation, which requires multi-level approvals from U.S., Egyptian, Israeli, and Palestinian authorities. At the time of publication, the U.S. Department of State had not issued an immediate response to requests for comment.