25 years later, 9/11 families are still fighting to get their day in court
A decade after Congress rewrote the law to give 9/11 families a shot at suing over the attacks, they are still waiting on the courthouse steps. That alone tells you something about how hard it is to turn a moral claim into a legal one. The law was meant to open a door, but the courts have spent years deciding how wide it opens, and the families keep getting pushed back into procedural arguments.
I think they deserve their day in court. If Congress deliberately created a pathway, the judiciary should let the cases move forward and see what the evidence shows. The claims may fail, and that's fine. But a dismissal on technical grounds leaves everyone in limbo, and it makes the law look hollow.
At the same time, I get why courts are cautious. These cases touch sovereign immunity, foreign policy, and how the U.S. treats other nations in its own legal system. A judge has to think about consequences beyond one lawsuit. Still, the families have already waited twenty-five years. At some point, the legal system needs to give them an answer, something more than another delay.