Under Abbasi, may line-level federal officers be sued for violating the Fourth Amendment?

QUESTION PRESENTED Under this Court’s ruling in Ziglar v. Abbasi, 137 S. Ct. 184 (2017), federal courts recognize an implied cause of action against federal officials accused of unconstitutional conduct when (1) the case is not meaningfully different from Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), or (2) the court is satisfied that the judiciary is well suited to decide whether to provide a remedy. The circuits are split on how Abbasi applies to line-level federal police sued for individual instances of law enforcement overreach under the Fourth Amendment. In the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Sixth, and Eleventh Circuits, such cases can proceed under step one of Abbasi because they are not considered meaningfully different from Bivens. See, e.g., Hicks v. Ferreyra, 965 F.3d 302 (4th Cir. 2020). In the Ninth Circuit, any case factually distinct from Bivens is considered meaningfully different, but line-level federal police can still be sued under step two of Abbasi for “conventional Fourth Amendment” violations. Boule v. Egbert, 998 F.3d 370 (9th Cir. 2021). In the Fifth and Eight Circuits, neither option is available. Those courts hold that such cases are (1) meaningfully different from Bivens and (2) the judiciary is not well suited to adjudicate them. See, e.g., Pet. App. 6a—7a. The question presented is: Under either step of the Abbasi test, may linelevel federal officers be sued for violating the Fourth Amendment?