Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-12-05407/USCOURTS-caDC-12-05407-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 530
Nature of Suit: Prisoner Petitions - Habeas Corpus
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 17, 2013 Decided December 24, 2013

No. 12-5404

FADI AL MAQALEH, DETAINEE, AND AHMAD AL MAQALEH, AS 

NEXT FRIEND OF FADI AL MAQALEH,

APPELLANTS

v.

CHUCK HAGEL, SECRETARY, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF 

DEFENSE, ET AL.,

APPELLEES

Consolidated with 12-5399, 12-5401

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:06-cv-01669)

(No. 1:08-cv-01307)

(No. 1:08-cv-02143)

No. 12-5407

AMANATULLAH, DETAINEE, AND ABDUL RAZAQ, AS NEXT 

FRIEND TO AMANATULLAH,

APPELLANTS

v.

USCA Case #12-5407 Document #1472248 Filed: 12/24/2013 Page 1 of 43
2

BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,

ET AL.,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:10-cv-00536)

No. 12-5410

HAMIDULLAH, DETAINEE, AND WAKEEL KHAN, AS NEXT 

FRIEND TO HAMIDULLAH,

APPELLANTS

v.

BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,

ET AL.,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:10-cv-00758)

Tina Monshipour Foster argued the cause for appellants 

Fadi Al Maqaleh, et al., in Nos. 12-5404, et al. Golnaz 

Fakhimi, Ramzi Kassem, Hope Metcalf and Sylvia Royce were 

on brief. Barbara J. Olshansky entered an appearance.

USCA Case #12-5407 Document #1472248 Filed: 12/24/2013 Page 2 of 43
3

Eric L. Lewis argued the cause for appellants 

Amanatullah, et al., in No. 12-5407. Tina Monshipour 

Foster, Golnaz Fakhimi and A. Katherine Toomey were on 

brief.

John J. Connolly argued the cause for appellants 

Hamidullah, et al., in No. 12-5410. William J. Murphy and 

Cori Crider were on brief.

Sharon Swingle, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, 

argued the cause for the appellees. Stuart F. Delery, Assistant 

Attorney General, Ronald C. Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney, and 

Douglas N. Letter, Attorney, were on brief.

Before: HENDERSON and GRIFFITH, Circuit Judges, and 

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge HENDERSON.

KAREN LECRAFT HENDERSON, Circuit Judge: Over three 

years ago, we decided that enemy combatants held by the 

United States at Bagram Airfield Military Base (Bagram) in

northwest Afghanistan could not invoke the Suspension 

Clause, U.S. CONST. art. I, § 9, cl. 2, to challenge their 

detentions. Al Maqaleh v. Gates, 605 F.3d 84 (D.C. Cir. 2010) 

(Al Maqaleh II). In these three appeals, Bagram detainees 

once again seek access to the writ of habeas corpus. We once 

again dismiss their petitions for want of jurisdiction.

I

A. Bagram and its Detainees

In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on our 

homeland, the Congress authorized the President to “use all 

necessary and appropriate force against those nations, 

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organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, 

committed, or aided” the attacks. Authorization for Use of 

Military Force (AUMF), Pub. L. No. 107-40, 115 Stat. 224, 

224 (2001). Among the powers conferred on the President 

was the power to detain enemy combatants “for the duration 

of the particular conflict in which they were captured.” Hamdi 

v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507, 518 (2004) (plurality opinion); id.

at 588–89 (Thomas, J., dissenting) (agreeing that AUMF 

authorizes detention); see also Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 

723, 733 (2008); Khairkhwa v. Obama, 703 F.3d 547, 548 

(D.C. Cir. 2012); Uthman v. Obama, 637 F.3d 400, 402 (D.C. 

Cir. 2011), cert. denied 132 S. Ct. 2739 (2012).

1

 An enemy 

combatant is any person who, at the time of capture, was a 

part of the Taliban, al Qaeda or associated forces engaged in 

hostilities against the United States. See Al-Madhwani v. 

Obama, 642 F.3d 1071, 1073–74 (D.C. Cir. 2011), cert. 

denied, 132 S. Ct. 2739 (2012); Al-Bihani v. Obama, 590 F.3d 

866, 872 (D.C. Cir. 2010), cert. denied, 131 S. Ct. 1814 

(2011).

The United States has detained enemy combatants at 

facilities both within and outside the United States, including 

Bagram. Located in Parwan Province in northwest 

Afghanistan, Bagram is the largest U.S. military installation 

in that country. Al Maqaleh II, 605 F.3d at 87. U.S. and allied 

forces conduct operations from Bagram. The current lease 

agreement between the United States and Afghanistan 

provides that the United States may occupy and use Bagram 

“for military purposes . . . until the United States or its 

 1 The Congress recently affirmed the President’s authority to 

detain enemy combatants. See Fiscal Year 2012 National Defense 

Authorization Act, Pub. L. No. 112-81, § 1021, 125 Stat. 1298, 

1562 (2011) (codified at 10 U.S.C. § 801 note (2012)).

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successors determine that the premises are no longer required 

for its use.” Id. (quotations marks omitted). 

Among those detained at Bagram are the five appellants 

in this case (to whom we refer collectively as the Appellants). 

Three of the Appellants—Fadi al-Maqaleh, Amin al-Bakri 

and Redha al-Najar—were appellees in Al Maqaleh II (we 

refer to them collectively as the Al Maqaleh II Appellants). 

Appellant al-Maqaleh is a Yemeni citizen who alleges that the 

United States captured him outside Afghanistan and 

transferred him to Bagram in 2004 or 2005. Appellant alBakri is a Yemeni citizen who alleges that the United States 

captured him in Thailand in 2002 and eventually transferred

him to Bagram. Appellant al-Najar is a Tunisian citizen who 

alleges he was captured in Pakistan in 2002 and subsequently

transferred to Bagram. Appellant Amanatullah is a Pakistani 

citizen who was captured by British forces in Iraq in 2004 or 

2005 and subsequently transferred to Bagram. Appellant 

Hamidullah is a Pakistani citizen who alleges that he was 

captured in the Pakistani border region of South Waziristan in 

2008 at the age of fourteen and subsequently detained at 

Bagram. 

Before Al Maqaleh II, the United States housed detainees

within the confines of Bagram at the Bagram Theater 

Internment Facility (BTIF). In late 2009, however, the United 

States constructed a new detention facility, then known as the 

Detention Facility in Parwan (DFIP), just outside Bagram. 

The United States transferred all Afghan detainees held in the 

BTIF to the DFIP by late 2009. Adjacent to the DFIP, the 

United States built a separate facility to house non-Afghan 

detainees. In May 2012, the United States agreed to transfer 

both “U.S. detention facilities in Afghan territory to Afghan 

control” and “Afghan nationals detained by U.S. forces at the 

[DFIP] to Afghanistan.” Memo. of Understanding on Transfer 

of U.S. Detention Facilities in Afghan Territory to 

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Afghanistan, U.S.-Afg., § 2, Mar. 9, 2012, Joint Appendix 

(JA) 680 (2012 MOU). The United States completed the 

transfer of the DFIP facility and its inmates to Afghan control 

on March 25, 2013. John Kerry, Remarks with President

Hamid Karzai After Their Meeting (Mar. 25, 2013), available 

at http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2013/03/206663.

htm; Press Release, International Assistance Security Force, 

North Atlantic Treaty Organization, U.S. Transitions Parwan 

Detention Facility to Afghan Government (Mar. 25, 2013), 

available at http://www.isaf.nato.int/article/isaf-releases/u.s.-

transitions-parwan-detention-facility-to-afghan-government.ht

ml. The DFIP—now known as the Afghan National 

Detention Facility-Parwan—is a part of the Justice Center in 

Parwan (JCIP), where the Afghan government conducts 

criminal trials of Afghan detainees. 

We note that the Appellants’ current status is unclear. 

Although the Government represented in May 2011 that it

detained them at the DFIP, it has since ceded the DFIP to 

Afghan control. The record does not disclose whether, after 

that cession, the Appellants remain there or at some other 

facility and the Government has not informed us of the

Appellants’ current location. The Appellants claim in their 

briefs—filed after the transfer of the DFIP to Afghan 

control—that the United States continues to detain them at “a 

separate prison facility at Bagram.” Joint Br. for Pet’rsAppellants (al-Maqaleh Br.) 38, Al Maqaleh v. Gates, Nos. 

12-5404, 12-5399, 12-5401 (D.C. Cir. April 27, 2013). 

Because the Government concedes its continuing custody 

over four of the five Appellants, we accept the Appellants’ 

alleged location of their detention as accurate for the purpose 

of our jurisdictional analysis.

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B. Legal Framework

In 2006, the Congress enacted the Military Commissions 

Act of 2006 (2006 MCA), Pub. L. No. 109-366, 120 Stat. 

2600. It provides, in pertinent part, that 

[n]o court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to 

hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas 

corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the 

United States who has been determined by the United 

States to have been properly detained as an enemy 

combatant or is awaiting such determination . . .

pending on or after the date of the enactment of this 

Act . . . .

Id. § 7(a), (b), 120 Stat. at 2635–36 (codified at 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2241(e)(1) (2006)). We held that section 7 stripped the 

court of jurisdiction to consider any habeas petition filed by 

any alien detained as an enemy combatant outside the United 

States. Boumediene v. Bush, 476 F.3d 981, 986–88 (D.C. Cir. 

2007). Relying on the United States Supreme Court’s 

decision in Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763 (1950), we

further concluded that section 7 did not unconstitutionally 

suspend the writ because the Suspension Clause’s protections 

did not reach the United States Naval Station Guantanamo 

Bay (Guantanamo) in Cuba. Id. at 990–94. In Eisentrager, 

German citizens detained by the United States at Landsberg 

Prison in post-World War II Bavaria petitioned for writs of 

habeas corpus. 339 U.S. at 765–66. The Supreme Court held 

that the constitutional right to the writ of habeas corpus did 

not extend to the German prisoners. Id. at 781. Our 

Boumediene decision read Eisentrager to hold that the 

protections of the Suspension Clause did not extend to aliens 

held outside the sovereign territory of the United States, 

including Guantanamo. Boumediene, 476 F.3d at 990–92. 

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The Supreme Court reversed. Boumediene v. Bush, 553 

U.S. 723 (2008). It rejected the “premise that de jure

sovereignty is the touchstone of habeas jurisdiction.” Id. at 

755; see also id. at 764 (“Nothing in Eisentrager says that de 

jure sovereignty is or has ever been the only relevant 

consideration in determining the geographic reach of the 

Constitution or of habeas corpus.”). Instead, construing 

Eisentrager in light of the Insular Cases

2 and Reid v. Covert, 

354 U.S. 1 (1957), the Supreme Court identified “a common 

thread uniting” its extraterritoriality jurisprudence, to wit, that

“questions of extraterritoriality turn on objective factors and 

practical concerns, not formalism.” Boumediene, 553 U.S. at 

764. It identified

at least three factors . . . relevant in determining the 

reach of the Suspension Clause: (1) the citizenship and 

status of the detainee and the adequacy of the process 

through which that status determination was made; (2) 

the nature of the sites where apprehension and then 

detention took place; and (3) the practical obstacles 

inherent in resolving the prisoner’s entitlement to the 

writ.

Id. at 766. Applying the factors to the detainees at 

Guantanamo, the Supreme Court concluded that the 

Suspension Clause extended to Guantanamo and therefore the 

Guantanamo detainees had a constitutional right to challenge 

 2 The Insular Cases were a series of cases addressing the reach 

of the Constitution to U.S. territories located in the Caribbean and 

the Pacific. See, e.g., Balzac v. Porto Rico, 258 U.S. 298 (1922); 

Dorr v. United States, 195 U.S. 138 (1904); Hawaii v. Mankichi,

190 U.S. 197 (1903); De Lima v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 1 (1901); 

Dooley v. United States, 182 U.S. 222 (1901); Armstrong v. United 

States, 182 U.S. 243 (1901); Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 244 

(1901). 

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the basis of their detention. Id. at 766–71. Because the

existing procedures did not afford them an adequate

opportunity to challenge their detentions, the Supreme Court 

held that section 7 of the 2006 MCA is an unconstitutional

suspension of the writ at Guantanamo. Id. at 792.

C. Litigation History

The Al Maqaleh II Appellants petitioned the district court 

for writs of habeas corpus.3

 Applying the three Boumediene

factors, the district court concluded that the Al Maqaleh II

Appellants were “virtually identical to the detainees in 

Boumediene” and held that section 7 of the 2006 MCA

unconstitutionally suspended the writ at Bagram. Al Maqaleh 

v. Gates, 604 F. Supp. 2d 205, 208–09 (D.D.C. 2009) (Al 

Maqaleh I). We reversed, holding that significant differences 

between Bagram and Guantanamo as well as the practical 

difficulties posed by adjudicating habeas petitions in a war

zone barred extension of the Suspension Clause to Bagram. Al 

Maqaleh II, 605 F.3d at 97–99. Shortly after our ruling, the 

Al Maqaleh II Appellants sought rehearing on the basis of 

new evidence which they claimed undermined our decision. 

We denied the petition “without prejudice to appellees’ ability 

to present this evidence to the district court in the first 

instance.” Order, Al Maqaleh II, No. 09-5265 (D.C. Cir. July 

23, 2011) (per curiam).

The Appellants then filed amended habeas petitions in

district court. The Al Maqaleh II Appellants argued that 

changed circumstances relevantly distinguished their new 

 3 Appellant al-Maqaleh filed his petition before the Supreme 

Court’s Boumediene decision and Appellants al-Bakri and al-Najar 

filed their petitions after Boumediene issued. The respondents in 

this case include the President, the Secretary of Defense (Secretary) 

and several John and Jane Does.

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petitions from those rejected in Al Maqaleh II. They claimed 

that new evidence indicated that the United States intended to 

remain at Bagram indefinitely; that obstacles to conducting 

habeas proceedings were less severe than the Al Maqaleh II

court believed; that the United States detained them at 

Bagram in order to evade the habeas jurisdiction of federal 

courts; and that the propriety-of-detention determination 

procedures used at Bagram were inadequate. Al Maqaleh v. 

Gates, 899 F. Supp. 2d 10, 16 (D.D.C. 2012) (Al Maqaleh 

III). In a thorough opinion, the district court dismissed the 

petitions, concluding that the new evidence did not alter the 

holding of Al Maqaleh II. Id. at 16–25. Appellant 

Amanatullah raised nearly identical arguments in his petition 

and they were rejected for largely the same reasons. 

Amanatullah v. Obama, 904 F. Supp. 2d 45, 49–57 (D.D.C. 

2012). Appellant Hamidullah argued that his infancy at the 

time of his capture weighed in favor of extending the writ. 

Hamidullah v. Obama, 899 F. Supp. 2d 3, 5–6 (D.D.C. 2012). 

The district court rejected this argument as insufficient to 

overcome the fact that Bagram is situated within a war zone. 

Id. at 10. The Appellants timely appealed. 

II

A. Standard of Review

We review de novo the dismissal of a habeas petition for 

want of jurisdiction. Al Maqaleh II, 605 F.3d at 94; see also

United States v. Poole, 531 F.3d 263, 270 (4th Cir. 2008);

Wang v. Ashcroft, 320 F.3d 130, 139–40 (2d Cir. 2003). 

Although we accept the allegations in the petition as true 

when reviewing a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction, 

see Leatherman v. Tarrant Cnty. Narcotics Intelligence & 

Coordination Unit, 507 U.S. 163, 164 (1993), that 

formulation does not accurately account for the full scope of 

our review. If the allegations upon which jurisdiction rests

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are challenged, the district court may resolve the dispute and 

consider its resolution of any disputed facts alongside the 

petitioner’s undisputed allegations. Herbert v. Nat’l Acad. of 

Scis., 974 F.2d 192, 197–98 (D.C. Cir. 1992); see also Coal.

for Underground Expansion v. Mineta, 333 F.3d 193, 198 

(D.C. Cir. 2003); EEOC v. St. Francis Xavier Parochial Sch., 

117 F.3d 621, 624 n.3 (D.C. Cir. 1997); 5B CHARLES ALAN

WRIGHT & ARTHUR P. MILLER, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND 

PROCEDURE § 1350, at 160 n.47 (3d ed. 2004) (collecting 

cases). We review the district court’s resolution of factual 

disputes for clear error. Herbert, 974 F.2d at 198. 

We have already decided that we do not have habeas 

jurisdiction at Bagram, see Al Maqaleh II, 605 F.3d 84, and

the law-of-the-circuit doctrine requires that we adhere to that 

decision, see In re Grant, 635 F.3d 1227, 1232 (D.C. Cir. 

2011) (“The law-of-the-circuit doctrine means that ‘the same 

issue presented in a later case in the same court should lead to 

the same result’ and that ‘[o]ne three judge panel . . . does not 

have the authority to overrule another three-judge panel of the 

court.’ ” (emphasis in original) (quoting LaShawn v. Barry, 87 

F.3d 1389, 1393, 1395 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (en banc))). Our task, 

therefore, is a modest one: to determine whether the 

circumstances underlying Al Maqaleh II have changed so 

drastically that we must revisit it.

4 

 4 Our review of the Al Maqaleh II Appellants’ appeal is further 

constrained both by the law-of-the-case doctrine, see Kimberlin v. 

Quinlan, 199 F.3d 496, 500 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (“The law-of-the-case 

doctrine rests on a simple premise: the same issue presented a 

second time in the same case in the same court should lead to the 

same result.” (quotation marks omitted)), and by the derivativewaiver doctrine, Crocker v. Piedmont Aviation, Inc., 49 F.3d 735, 

739 (D.C. Cir. 1995) (“A legal decision made at one stage of 

litigation, unchallenged in a subsequent appeal when the 

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B. Mootness

Events subsequent to oral argument require us to 

determine whether Appellant Hamidullah’s appeal is moot. 

On November 16, 2013, the United States transferred 

Hamidullah to the custody of the government of Pakistan. 

After learning of the transfer, we ordered the parties to brief 

the mootness question. Having reviewed the briefs, we 

conclude that the parties’ factual dispute regarding the nature 

of Pakistan’s custody over Hamidullah must be resolved by 

the district court in the first instance.

Under Article III of the Constitution, we have authority 

to adjudicate only live cases or controversies. Already, LLC 

v. Nike, Inc., 133 S. Ct. 721, 726 (2013). “A case remains 

live ‘[a]s long as the parties have a concrete interest, however 

small, in the outcome of the litigation.’ ” United Bhd. of 

Carpenters & Joiners of Am. v. Operative Plasterers’ & 

Cement Masons’ Int’l Ass’n of the U.S. & Can., 721 F.3d 678, 

687 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (quoting Knox v. Serv. Emps. Int’l 

Union, Local 1000, 132 S. Ct. 2277, 2287 (2012)). This

“ ‘requirement subsists through all stages of federal judicial 

proceedings, trial and appellate. It is not enough that a 

dispute was very much alive when suit was filed’; the parties 

must ‘continue to have a personal stake’ in the ultimate 

disposition of the lawsuit.” Chafin v. Chafin, 133 S. Ct. 1017, 

1023 (2013) (quoting Lewis v. Cont’l Bank Corp., 494 U.S. 

472, 477–78 (1990)) (quotation marks, brackets and citation 

omitted); see also Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U.S. 452, 459 n.10 

(1974). 

 

opportunity to do so existed, governs future stages of the same 

litigation, and the parties are deemed to have waived the right to 

challenge that decision at a later time.” (quotation marks and 

brackets omitted)).

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We have previously addressed the effect of a detainee’s 

release on his pending habeas petition. In Gul v. Obama, two 

aliens detained as enemy combatants filed habeas petitions 

challenging their detentions. 652 F.3d 12, 14 (D.C. Cir. 2011). 

During the pendency of their petitions, the United States 

released them to the custody of foreign governments. Id. 

They argued that their petitions were not moot, however, 

because they continued to suffer “collateral consequences”

arising from their designation as enemy combatants. Id. at 15. 

Under the collateral consequences doctrine, a prisoner’s 

habeas petition challenging the legality of his conviction 

becomes moot upon the expiration of his sentence unless he 

can show that he continues to suffer some continuing harm, or

“collateral consequence,” from his conviction. United States 

v. Juvenile Male, 131 S. Ct. 2860, 2864 (2011) (citing 

Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1, 7–8 (1998); see also Carafas 

v. LaVallee, 391 U.S. 234, 237–38 (1968) (announcing 

collateral consequences doctrine). Assuming without 

deciding that the collateral consequences doctrine applied, we 

held that the petitioners’ alleged collateral consequences—

travel restrictions, ongoing danger of recapture under the laws 

of war and stigma—were insufficient to save their petitions 

from mootness. Id. at 18–21. 

As in Gul, the Government has submitted a declaration 

explaining that, when it transferred Hamidullah, it 

“relinquish[ed] all legal and physical custody and control” 

over him to the government of Pakistan. Supplemental Br. for 

Resp’ts-Appellees, Ex. 1, Decl. of Paul Lewis, Special Envoy 

for Detainee Transfers ¶ 3, Hamidullah v. Obama, No. 12-

5410 (D.C. Cir. Nov. 27, 2013) (Lewis Declaration). The 

Government therefore contends that he is identically situated 

to the petitioners in Gul and his appeal must be dismissed. 

Hamidullah contests the Lewis Declaration, arguing that we 

must remand to the district court to determine whether “the 

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United States has imposed transfer terms and conditions that 

create[] a form of constructive United States custody after 

transfer.” Supplemental Br. of Appellants 7–8, Hamidullah v. 

Obama, No. 12-5410 (D.C. Cir. Nov. 27, 2013) (emphasis 

omitted).

Although in Gul we credited the Government’s 

declaration that it transferred both petitioners “entirely to the 

custody and control of the receiving government,” Gul, 652 

F.3d at 18 (quotation marks and brackets omitted), the district 

court first examined those declarations and credited them over 

the petitioners’ contrary allegations, In re Petitioners Seeking 

Habeas Corpus Relief in Relation to Prior Detentions at 

Guantanamo Bay, 700 F. Supp. 2d 119, 127–29 (D.D.C. 

2010). In this appeal, however, we lack the benefit of the 

district court’s examination of the evidence in the first 

instance. We think it unwise to decide our jurisdiction when 

it turns in part on unresolved factual questions. See Prakash v. 

Am. Univ., 727 F.2d 1174, 1179–80, 1183 (D.C. Cir. 1984);

Marshall v. Local Union No. 639, Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters, 

593 F.2d 1297, 1301 (D.C. Cir. 1979); see also Singleton v. 

Wulff, 428 U.S. 106, 120 (1976) (“It is the general rule, of 

course, that a federal appellate court does not consider an 

issue not passed upon below.”). We therefore remand 

Hamidullah’s petition to the district court for the limited 

purpose of determining whether he is in the sole custody of 

the government of Pakistan.

5

 

 5 We do not mean to say that the Lewis Declaration is 

insufficient to settle the mootness question. Hamidullah bears the 

burden of adducing facts sufficient to show that his case is not 

moot. Gul, 652 F.3d at 21 (quoting Spencer, 523 U.S. at 11); see 

also McNutt v. Gen. Motors Acceptance Corp. of Ind., 298 U.S. 

178, 189 (1936) (Hughes, C.J.) (“[The plaintiff] must allege in his 

pleading the facts essential to show jurisdiction.”). If the district 

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III

To decide whether the Appellants have any right under 

the Suspension Clause, we apply Boumediene’s three-factor 

test. We address each factor in turn.6

A. Citizenship and Status

We first consider the “citizenship and status” of the 

Appellants. In Boumediene, the petitioners were “aliens 

designated as enemy combatants and detained” by the United 

States but they disputed that designation. See Boumediene, 

553 U.S. at 732, 766. The appellants in Al Maqaleh II were 

identically situated and we held that this prong of the first 

factor weighed in favor of extending the protection of the 

Suspension Clause to Bagram. Al Maqaleh II, 605 F.3d at 96. 

The Appellants now argue, however, that their citizenship and 

status distinguish them from Boumediene and Al Maqaleh II

such that this prong now supports their argument for 

extension of the Suspension Clause more strongly than 

before. Their arguments require us to define the meaning of 

“citizenship and status” under Boumediene. 

Like the Boumediene petitioners and the Al Maqaleh II

appellees, the Appellants in these appeals are aliens detained 

 

court determines that Hamidullah’s evidence fails to impugn the 

Lewis Declaration’s accuracy, we believe that declaration would 

suffice to establish that Pakistan is not detaining Hamidullah on the 

United States’s behalf. See Gul, 652 F.3d at 18 & n.*; Kiyemba v. 

Obama (Kiyemba II), 561 F.3d 509, 515 n.7 (D.C. Cir. 2009). 

6 Both Boumediene and Al Maqaleh II treat the “citizenship and 

status” and “adequacy of the process” prongs of the first factor as 

analytically distinct and therefore we do as well.

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as enemy combatants.7 Appellant Amanatullah contends that, 

although he is an alien, his Pakistani citizenship is relevant

because, as a Pakistani citizen, he is not a citizen of an enemy 

nation. His specific alien citizenship is not relevant, however,

because the only relevant citizenship under Boumediene is 

American citizenship. In Boumediene all of the petitioners 

were “foreign nationals, but none [was] a citizen of a nation 

[then] at war with the United States.” Boumediene, 553 U.S. 

at 734. The Court accorded this observation no weight. 

Instead, it focused on the fact that the “[p]etitioners, like those 

in Eisentrager, [we]re not American citizens.” Boumediene, 

553 U.S. at 766. Al Maqaleh II also focused exclusively on 

whether the detainees were U.S. citizens or aliens. It 

elucidated the analytical significance of the “citizenship” 

prong by referencing the settled authority according U.S. 

citizens more robust constitutional protections than 

nonresident aliens. Al Maqaleh II, 605 F.3d at 95–96 (quoting 

United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259, 273 

(1990)). But the applicability of constitutional protections has 

never turned on the specific citizenship of an alien; ceteris 

paribus, a nonresident Briton is no more entitled to invoke the 

 7 At the outset, we note that the Supreme Court did not explain 

the significance of a detainee’s alienage or enemy-combatant 

designation. Although we held in Al Maqaleh II that the 

petitioners’ citizenship and status weighed in favor of extending the 

Suspension Clause, Boumediene did not so hold. Boumediene held 

only that the petitioners’ challenge to the Government’s designation 

put them in a stronger position than the Eisentrager petitioners, 

who apparently did not “contest . . . the Court’s assertion that they 

were enemy aliens.” Boumediene, 553 U.S. at 766 (quotation marks 

and brackets omitted). We need not decide whether some status 

other than “enemy combatant” would affect the Boumediene

analysis because we conclude that the Appellants are identically 

situated to the petitioners in Boumediene. 

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17

rights of the Constitution than a nonresident Pakistani. We

therefore conclude that “citizenship” under Boumediene asks 

only whether the detainee is a U.S. citizen or an alien. 

Because Appellant Amanatullah is an alien, this prong weighs 

no more in his favor than it did for the detainees in 

Boumediene and Al Maqaleh II.

8

 

Although the Appellants are designated as enemy 

combatants, they argue that characteristics other than the

designation are relevant to the “status” prong of the first 

Boumediene factor. In so arguing, the Appellants sorely

misread Boumediene. “Status” does not refer to a detainee’s 

individual characteristics but instead to the designation 

 8 Amanatullah’s argument might carry more weight if the basis 

of his detention were his citizenship. Under the Alien Enemy Act, 

Act of July 6, 1798, ch. 66, § 1, 1 Stat. 577 (codified at 50 U.S.C. 

§ 21 (2006)), the President may summarily detain any person who 

is a citizen of a nation with which the United States is at war. See, 

e.g., Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 342 U.S. 580, 587 (1952); Ludecke 

v. Watkins, 335 U.S. 160, 164 (1948); Brown v. United States, 12 

U.S. (8 Cranch) 110, 126 (1814) (Marshall, C.J.) (stating that Alien 

Enemy Act “confers on the president very great discretionary 

powers respecting [alien enemies’] persons”); Citizens Protective 

League v. Clark, 155 F.2d 290, 294 (D.C. Cir. 1946). Under the 

AUMF, however, the President may detain only “enemy 

combatants”—those persons the President determines are part of a 

force engaged in hostilities against the United States. This power is 

at once both broader and narrower than the power conferred on the 

President by the Alien Enemy Act: it is not limited to any particular 

citizenship but mere citizenship does not justify detention. The 

distinction results from the nature of the current conflict. Our 

enemies fly no flag, don no uniforms, bear no allegiance to any 

state and hale from every corner of the globe. They put no stock in 

Westphalian notions of sovereignty or citizenship; the AUMF 

simply authorizes the President to meet the threat on our enemies’ 

terms. 

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18

justifying his detention. The Boumediene court had to 

“determine whether petitioners are barred from seeking the 

writ or invoking the protections of the Suspension Clause . . .

because of their status, i.e., petitioners’ designation by the 

Executive Branch as enemy combatants.” Id. at 739 (emphasis 

added). Similarly, the second prong of the first factor is the 

“adequacy of the process through which that status 

determination was made.” Id. at 769 (emphasis added). The 

Supreme Court’s language makes clear that “status” does not 

include the detainees’ personal characteristics but is instead 

the label, or designation, placed on the detainee by the 

President to justify the detainee’s detention. 

Applying this definition of “status” to the Appellants’ 

arguments, we conclude that the Appellants are identically 

situated to the Boumediene and Al Maqaleh II petitioners. 

The Appellants allege that a Detainee Review Board (DRB)—

a military tribunal periodically convened to determine a 

detainee’s status at Bagram—has cleared each of them for 

release from Bagram and that this “status” weighs in their 

favor. But the Government’s justification for detaining the

Appellants is unchanged: they remain designated as enemy 

combatants. Because eligibility for release “is irrelevant to 

whether a petitioner may be detained lawfully,” including

when our inquiry is into the propriety of the Government’s 

status designation, we do not consider it as part of our 

jurisdictional inquiry. Almerfedi v. Obama, 654 F.3d 1, 4 n.3 

(D.C. Cir. 2011) (citing Awad v. Obama, 608 F.3d 1, 11 (D.C. 

Cir. 2010), cert. denied, 131 S. Ct. 1814 (2011)), cert. denied, 

132 S. Ct. 2739 (2012). 

Appellant Amanatullah separately contends that his 

“actual status” entitles him to release. His argument is more 

invective than substance but insofar as we apprehend it, he 

appears to contend that the Suspension Clause must extend to 

him because the United States has failed to prove that his 

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19

detention is lawful. Alternatively, he argues that he is at least 

entitled to jurisdictional discovery in order to ascertain the 

basis of his detention. We reject Appellant Amanatullah’s

argument not only because it is irrelevant under Boumediene

but also because it commits the fallacy of petitio principii. 

Every habeas petition disputes the lawfulness of detention; 

that dispute is the quintessence of habeas corpus. Munaf v. 

Geren, 553 U.S. 674, 693 (2008) (“Habeas is at its core a 

remedy for unlawful executive detention.”); INS v. St. Cyr, 

533 U.S. 289, 301 (2001) (“At its historical core, the writ of 

habeas corpus has served as a means of reviewing the legality 

of Executive detention . . . .”). While we may not assess the 

lawfulness of detention unless we have jurisdiction, Steel Co. 

v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 94–95 (1998), we 

“always have jurisdiction to determine [our] own 

jurisdiction,” United States v. Ruiz, 536 U.S. 622, 628 (2002) 

(citing United States v. United Mine Workers of Am., 330 U.S. 

258, 291 (1947)). Appellant Amanatullah’s proposal is little 

more than an end run around the jurisdictional inquiry: if our 

jurisdiction turns on the lawfulness of detention, we will 

always resolve that question because we always have 

authority to decide our jurisdiction. Eliding the lawfulness of 

detention with the extraterritoriality inquiry would eliminate 

the need for an independent jurisdictional inquiry and result in 

universal habeas jurisdiction. We unequivocally reject any 

argument espousing the universal extraterritorial application 

of the Suspension Clause. Al Maqaleh II, 605 F.3d at 95.

9

 9 We also reject the Appellants’ argument that, because they 

were not captured in places where the United States is currently at 

war, their detention is not necessary to prevent their return to the 

battlefield (because it either never existed or no longer exists). In 

addition to the reasons already discussed, we reject the argument 

because the Boumediene and Al Maqaleh II petitioners were 

captured in places in which the United States was not at war and 

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We similarly deny Appellant Amanatullah’s request for 

jurisdictional discovery to uncover the factual basis for his 

detention. The district court has discretion to allow discovery 

if it “could produce [facts] that would affect [its]

jurisdictional analysis.” Goodman Holdings v. Rafidain Bank, 

26 F.3d 1143, 1147 (D.C. Cir. 1994). Denying discovery in 

the absence of some “specific indication . . . regarding ‘what 

facts additional discovery could produce that would affect the 

court’s jurisdictional analysis’ ” is a proper exercise of that 

discretion. Cheyenne Arapaho Tribes of Okla. v. United 

States, 558 F.3d 592, 596 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (brackets omitted) 

(quoting Mwani v. bin Laden, 417 F.3d 1, 17 (D.C. Cir. 

2005)); see also Rules Governing Section 2254 and 2255 

Cases in the U.S. District Courts, R. 6(a), 28 U.S.C. foll. 

§ 2254 (2006 & Supp. III 2010) (discovery permitted in 

habeas proceedings for good cause shown); Bracy v. Gramley, 

520 U.S. 899, 904 (1997) (discussing discovery standard 

under the Rules); Aguayo v. Harvey, 476 F.3d 971, 976 (D.C. 

Cir. 2007) (stating that the Rules apply to section 2241 

proceedings pursuant to Rule 1(b)). Discovery regarding the 

lawfulness of Appellant Amanatullah’s detention cannot 

advance our jurisdictional inquiry because it is irrelevant to 

that inquiry. The district court therefore did not abuse its 

discretion in denying discovery on that question. See United 

States v. Gale, 314 F.3d 1, 6 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (citing Bracy, 

 

that fact played no role in either court’s analysis. See Al Maqaleh 

II, 605 F.3d at 87 (noting that petitioners were captured in Pakistan 

and Thailand); Khalid v. Bush, 355 F. Supp. 2d 311, 316 (D.D.C. 

2005) (noting that some Boumediene petitioners were captured in 

Bosnia and Pakistan); In re Guantanamo Detainee Cases, 355 F. 

Supp. 2d 443, 446 (D.D.C. 2005) (noting that other Boumediene

petitioners were captured in Gambia, Zambia, Bosnia and 

Thailand). 

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520 U.S. at 909) (holding that denial of discovery in habeas 

proceedings is reviewed for abuse of discretion). 

B. Adequacy of the Process

We next consider “the adequacy of the process through 

which that status determination was made.” Boumediene, 553 

U.S. at 766. At the time of Boumediene, Combatant Status 

Review Tribunals (CSRTs) were used pursuant to the 

Secretary’s order to determine whether Guantanamo detainees 

were properly designated as enemy combatants. Boumediene, 

553 U.S. at 733; see also Memorandum from Paul Wolfowitz, 

Deputy Secretary of Defense, Re Order Establishing 

Combatant Status Tribunal, to the Secretary of the Navy (July 

7, 2004), available at http://www.defense.gov/news/

jul2004/d20040707review.pdf. The Supreme Court 

concluded that the use of CSRTs to determine a detainee’s

status weighed in favor of extending the Suspension Clause 

because they “[we]re far more limited, and . . . f[e]ll well 

short of the procedures and adversarial mechanisms that 

would eliminate the need for habeas corpus review.” Id. at 

767. This reasoning is the same used by the Court to 

determine whether the CSRTs violated the Suspension Clause

after it decided that the Suspension Clause applied and is thus 

slightly circular—an alien detained abroad is more likely to 

have a right under the Suspension Clause if the United States 

is violating his Suspension Clause right. We distill from the 

Supreme Court’s discussion the following principle: the less

closely a propriety-of-detention determination resembles 

traditional habeas review, the more likely the Suspension 

Clause applies.

In Al Maqaleh II, Unlawful Enemy Combatant Review 

Boards (UECRBs) created by order of the Secretary of 

Defense had determined the status of Bagram detainees. We 

held that because the UECRB afforded “even less protection 

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22

to the rights of detainees in the determination of status than 

was the case with the CSRT,” this prong weighed in favor of 

extending the Suspension Clause to Bagram detainees. Al 

Maqaleh II, 605 F.3d at 96. In other words, because UECRB 

procedures resembled traditional habeas procedures less than

did the CSRT procedures in Boumediene, the “adequacy of 

process” prong weighed more heavily in favor of extending 

the Suspension Clause to Bagram. Id. After Al Maqaleh I, the 

Defense Department replaced the UECRB with the DRB. We 

declined to consider the DRB procedures in Al Maqaleh II, 

however, because no DRB had yet determined the status of

each of the Al Maqaleh II appellees. Id. at 96 n.4. Here, 

however, separate DRBs have determined the status of each 

Appellant so we now consider the adequacy of those 

procedures.

The Appellants argue that the DRB procedures are still 

insufficient substitutes for habeas review and provide fewer 

protections than the CSRT did. Whatever the CSRTs’

protections may have been, the DRB procedures are 

undoubtedly more akin to traditional habeas proceedings than

were the UECRB procedures. The Appellants conceded as 

much in district court. See Al Maqaleh III, 899 F. Supp. 2d at 

24. For example, detainees are now entitled to a personal 

representative and may call witnesses, proffer evidence and 

investigate potentially exculpatory information, none of 

which the UECRBs permitted. Even if the DRB still falls

short of the CSRT procedures, they more closely resemble 

habeas review than the UECRB procedures. Accordingly, 

this factor weighs less in the Appellants’ favor than it did in

Al Maqaleh II.

10 

 10 The Al Maqaleh II Appellants complain that even if the DRB 

procedures are facially more favorable to the detainees, the 

Government’s application of those procedures effectively leaves the 

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C. The “Nature” of Bagram

The second factor in the Boumediene analysis is “the 

nature of the sites where apprehension and then detention 

took place.” Boumediene, 553 U.S. at 766. Boumediene held

that Guantanamo’s location outside the United States, like 

Landsberg Prison’s location, weighed against extending the 

Suspension Clause there. Id. at 768. But, unlike at

Guantanamo, U.S. control at Landsberg “was neither absolute 

nor indefinite.” Id. The United States answered to its Allies 

for its administration of Landsberg. Id. By contrast, “the 

United States is . . . answerable to no other sovereign for its 

acts” at Guantanamo. Id. at 770. Moreover, the United States 

did not plan a long-term occupation of Germany, meaning the

United States’s control over Landsberg was only temporary.

Id. at 768. “Guantanamo Bay, on the other hand, is no 

transient possession. In every practical sense Guantanamo is 

 

UECRBs intact. Specifically, they assert that, although DRB 

procedures afford detainees an opportunity to call witnesses, they

have been denied that opportunity. They cite as evidence their 

counsel’s declaration that the Department of Defense denied her the 

opportunity to testify before a DRB either by telephone or in 

person. The Government disputed this claim in district court and 

submitted an affidavit from a Defense Department official declaring 

that the United States denied the Al Maqaleh II Appellants’ 

submitted request to have their counsel testify in person but did not 

deny them the opportunity to have their counsel testify by 

telephone. When the Al Maqaleh II Appellants learned that their 

counsel could not testify in person, they refused to participate in the 

proceedings and informed their personal representative that they did 

not want their counsel to testify by telephone. The district court 

resolved this factual dispute in the Government’s favor, see Al 

Maqaleh III, 899 F. Supp. 2d at 25, and we perceive no error, much 

less clear error, in its resolution, see Herbert, 974 F.2d at 198. 

USCA Case #12-5407 Document #1472248 Filed: 12/24/2013 Page 23 of 43
24

not abroad; it is within the constant jurisdiction of the United 

States.” Id. at 768–69. 

In Al Maqaleh II, we concluded that Bagram is far more 

similar to Landsberg than to Guantanamo. We explained:

While it is true that the United States holds a leasehold 

interest in Bagram, and held a leasehold interest in 

Guantanamo, the surrounding circumstances are 

hardly the same. The United States has maintained its 

total control of Guantanamo Bay for over a century, 

even in the face of a hostile government maintaining 

de jure sovereignty over the property. In Bagram, 

while the United States has options as to duration of 

the lease agreement, there is no indication of any 

intent to occupy the base with permanence, nor is 

there hostility on the part of the “host” country. 

Therefore, the notion that de facto sovereignty extends 

to Bagram is no more real than would have been the 

same claim with respect to Landsberg in the 

Eisentrager case.

Al Maqaleh II, 605 F.3d at 97.

The Appellants argue that Al Maqaleh II no longer 

controls our analysis because new evidence demonstrates that 

the United States now intends to permanently occupy 

Bagram. Although their argument is exceptionally difficult to

parse, the Appellants appear to contend that (1) the transfer of 

Afghan prisoners, but not the Appellants, to Afghan custody

suggests that the United States intends to permanently hold 

them; (2) because the war undertaken pursuant to the AUMF 

may continue in perpetuity, and in any event far beyond the 

end of U.S. operations in Afghanistan, the United States 

intends to detain the Appellants indefinitely; and, (3) a new

agreement between the United States and Afghanistan 

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25

indicates that the United States will remain in Afghanistan 

indefinitely. 

The Appellants misapprehend the import of the second 

factor; it calls for an examination of the extent of control over 

the physical situs of detention and the permanence of that 

control. Boumediene, 553 U.S. at 768; Al Maqaleh II, 605 

F.3d at 96–97. The indefiniteness of the United States’s

control over the place of detention, not over the prisoners, is 

the relevant issue. Whether the United States asserts authority 

to detain the Appellants indefinitely under the AUMF is 

relevant only if evidence demonstrates that the United States 

intends to do so at Bagram. As we explain below, no such 

evidence exists. 

The Government in Al Maqaleh II represented that it had 

no intention of remaining in Afghanistan permanently or of 

establishing a permanent base or prison at Bagram. We took 

the Government at its word. Al Maqaleh II, 605 F.3d at 97. 

Subsequent events have confirmed, not undermined, the 

Government’s declared intention. The 2012 MOU provided 

for the eventual transfer of all Afghan detainees and U.S. 

detention facilities to Afghanistan. The United States has 

delivered on its promise, transferring both the DFIP and all 

Afghan detainees to Afghanistan earlier this year. DEP’T OF 

DEFENSE, PROGRESS TOWARD SECURITY AND STABILITY IN 

AFGHANISTAN 139–40 (July 2013), available at http://

www.defense.gov/pubs/Section_1230_Report_July_2013.pdf.

The United States also recently transferred one of the 

Appellants in these appeals to his home country. See supra 

Section II.B. Moreover, the United States and Afghanistan 

recently entered into an agreement in which Afghanistan 

promised to “provide U.S. forces continued access to and use 

of Afghan facilities through 2014” while the United States 

“reaffirmed that it does not seek permanent military facilities 

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in Afghanistan.” Enduring Strategic Partnership Agreement

(ESPA), art. III, ¶ 6, U.S.-Afg., May 2, 2012, JA 747. 

We do not suggest that this evidence affirmatively 

establishes that the United States will transfer control of 

Bagram by the end of 2014 nor does our decision rest on the 

assumption that such a transfer will occur in 2014 or at any 

other specific future date. The year 2014 is not a “sell by” 

date after which this factor weighs in the Appellants’ favor. 

We view this evidence merely as support for the conclusion 

we reached in Al Maqaleh II that American control over 

Bagram and its detention facilities lacks the permanence of

U.S. control over Guantanamo. See Al Maqaleh II, 605 F.3d 

at 97.

The Appellants nevertheless contend that the ESPA 

suggests that the United States intends to remain at Bagram 

permanently. They argue that the ESPA “contemplates that 

the US [sic] will maintain a military presence in Afghanistan 

through at least 2024.” al-Maqaleh Br. 38 (emphasis in 

original). We reject the Appellants’ disingenuous reading of 

the ESPA. The only reference to the year 2024 in that 

document is the provision that the ESPA “shall remain in 

force until the end of 2024.” ESPA, art. VII, ¶ 1, JA 752. 

Although the ESPA contemplates that a Bilateral Security 

Agreement may permit U.S. forces to remain in Afghanistan 

after 2014, nothing in the ESPA so provides.

11 Accordingly, 

 11 We are aware that a recently released draft of the Bilateral 

Security Agreement grants the United States authority to maintain a 

military facility at Bagram beyond 2014. We can only guess 

whether the agreement will ever enter into force so it does not alter 

our analysis. See Tim Craig & Karen DeYoung, Security Pact with 

Afghans Cast into Doubt, WASH. POST, Nov. 26, 2013, at A1 

(documenting significant obstacles to finalization of agreement).

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the ESPA gives us “no indication of any intent to occupy the 

base with permanence.” Al Maqaleh II, 605 F.3d at 97.

D. Practical Obstacles

1

Finally, we examine “the practical obstacles inherent in 

resolving the prisoner’s entitlement to the writ.” Boumediene, 

553 U.S. at 766. In Boumediene, the Court explained the 

significance of this factor by reference to the facts of 

Eisentrager:

When hostilities in the European Theater came to an 

end, the United States became responsible for an 

occupation zone encompassing over 57,000 square 

miles with a population of 18 million. In addition to 

supervising massive reconstruction and aid efforts the 

American forces stationed in Germany faced potential 

security threats from a defeated enemy. In retrospect 

the post-War occupation may seem uneventful. But at 

the time Eisentrager was decided, the Court was right 

to be concerned about judicial interference with the 

military’s efforts to contain “enemy elements, guerilla 

fighters, and ‘werewolves.’ ”

Id. at 769–70 (citations omitted) (quoting Eisentrager, 339 

U.S. at 784).12 “[C]ontain[ing] enemy elements, guerilla 

fighters, and werewolves,” however, was not the Eisentrager

Court’s only concern:

 12 The “werewolves” noted in Eisentrager reference a nascent 

guerrilla operation planned by the Nazis to resist Allied occupation 

of Germany. See generally PERRY BIDDISCOMBE, WERWOLF!: THE 

HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST GUERRILLA MOVEMENT, 

1944–1946 (1998). 

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The writ, since it is held to be a matter of right, would 

be equally available to enemies during active 

hostilities as in the present twilight between war and 

peace. Such trials would hamper the war effort and 

bring aid and comfort to the enemy. They would 

diminish the prestige of our commanders, not only 

with enemies but with wavering neutrals. It would be 

difficult to devise more effective fettering of a field 

commander than to allow the very enemies he is 

ordered to reduce to submission to call him to account 

in his own civil courts and divert his efforts and 

attention from the military offensive abroad to the 

legal defensive at home. Nor is it unlikely that the 

result of such enemy litigiousness would be a conflict 

between judicial and military opinion highly 

comforting to enemies of the United States.

Eisentrager, 339 U.S. at 779. In Boumediene, the Supreme 

Court found no “[s]imilar threats . . . apparent” in 

adjudicating habeas petitions arising from Guantanamo. 

Boumediene, 553 U.S. at 770. Unlike in Eisentrager, “[t]he 

Government present[ed] no credible arguments that the 

military mission at Guantanamo would be compromised if 

habeas corpus courts had jurisdiction to hear the detainees’ 

claims.” Id. at 769. Moreover, “[t]here [was] no indication . . 

. that adjudicating a habeas corpus petition would cause 

friction with the host government.” Id. at 770. 

In Al Maqaleh II, we concluded that the circumstances at 

Bagram compelled an opposite conclusion. Emphasizing

Boumediene’s suggestion that its outcome may have been 

different “ ‘if the detention facility were located in an active 

theater of war,’ ” Al Maqaleh II, 605 F.3d at 98 (emphasis 

omitted) (quoting Boumediene, 553 U.S. at 770), we held that 

the practical concerns identified in Eisentrager “are more 

relevant to the situation at Bagram than they were at 

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Landsberg” such that this factor “weigh[ed] overwhelmingly 

in favor of the position of the United States,” id. at 97, 98. 

Whereas Landsberg Prison stood within the land of a defeated

enemy, “Bagram remains in a theater of war” against a 

formidable and determined foe. Id. at 98. If the adjudication 

of habeas petitions would have interfered with the occupation 

of a pacified country, a fortiori habeas proceedings would 

interfere with combat operations on the battlefield. Finally, 

unlike at Guantanamo, “[t]he United States holds the 

detainees pursuant to a cooperative arrangement with 

Afghanistan on territory as to which Afghanistan is 

sovereign.” Id. at 99. Although we expressed uncertainty 

about whether extending habeas jurisdiction to Bagram might 

disrupt that arrangement, we recognized the risk in extending 

our jurisdiction without being able to “say with certainty what 

the reaction of the Afghan government would be.” Id. 

The Government represents that the United States

remains at war in Afghanistan. Appellants do not dispute the 

Government’s claim, nor can they. Whether an armed 

conflict has ended is a question left exclusively to the political 

branches. See Ludecke v. Watkins, 335 U.S. 160, 168 (1948); 

The Three Friends, 166 U.S. 1, 63 (1897); The Protector, 79 

U.S. (12 Wall.) 700, 701–02 (1871); The Prize Cases, 67 U.S. 

(2 Black) 635, 670 (1862). Not only have the political 

branches yet to announce an end to the war in Afghanistan, 

but the President has repeatedly declared that it is ongoing. 

The President’s Weekly Address, 2013 DAILY COMP. PRES.

DOC. 13 (Jan. 12, 2013); The President’s Address to the 

Nation on Military Operations in Afghanistan from Bagram 

Air Base, Afghanistan, 2012 DAILY COMP. PRES. DOC. 336 

(May 2, 2012). 

Because the war in Afghanistan continues, the war-borne

practical obstacles identified in Eisentrager still obtain at 

Bagram. The United States in Afghanistan is not involved 

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merely in administering occupied territory and containing 

scattered guerilla fighters but rather in quelling a large-scale 

insurgency against the government of a regional ally. If

preserving the “prestige of our commanders” and avoiding

“conflict between judicial and military opinion” were 

significant goals in administering an occupied land, 

Eisentrager, 339 U.S. at 779, they are even more important in 

an active war zone. Allowing prisoners previously declared 

by the U.S. military to be enemy combatants to force military 

commanders into civilian court may give our allies reason to 

doubt the authority of, and promises made by, those 

commanders. Orders issued by judges thousands of miles 

away releasing those prisoners would undercut the 

commanders’ authority all the more. Undermining the 

prestige and authority of U.S. commanders may cause 

“wavering neutrals” to throw their lot in with our enemies if 

they believe that our commanders lack the authority to, for 

example, provide the promised level of protection against 

those enemies. As in Eisentrager, we simply cannot discern 

how “allow[ing] the very enemies [a commander] is ordered 

to reduce to submission to call him to account in his own civil 

courts” would not “hamper the war effort and bring aid and 

comfort to the enemy.” Id. Our conclusion is therefore 

unchanged: the practical obstacles posed by hearing habeas 

petitions from a war zone weigh “overwhelmingly” against 

extending the Suspension Clause to Bagram.” Al Maqaleh II, 

605 F.3d at 97.13

 13 Appellant Amanatullah suggests that our analysis should turn 

on the acuteness of the danger posed to a particular installation by 

the war, arguing that the practical obstacles posed by armed combat 

are less extreme at Bagram than at a forward-operating base. We 

do not premise constitutional distinctions on the inconstancies of 

shifting battle lines or the burst of mortar shells. Instead, we 

conclude that the practical obstacles identified in Eisentrager and 

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2

Although the state of war in Afghanistan is unchanged, 

the Appellants argue that new evidence demonstrates the 

practical obstacles identified in Al Maqaleh II are not as grave 

as we previously believed. They allege that the United States 

has participated in Afghan criminal proceedings at the JCIP 

by mentoring Afghan personnel and collecting evidence for

those trials. They contend that this participation demonstrates 

that habeas cases would not divert “ ‘efforts and attention 

from the military offensive.’ ” al-Maqaleh Br. 19 (quoting 

Eisentrager, 339 U.S. at 779). 

The Appellants miss Eisentrager’s point. The question is 

not whether, in the abstract, U.S. armed forces are capable of 

participating in judicial proceedings. We do not doubt that, 

with sufficient resources, U.S. forces could ably participate in 

habeas proceedings. The question is whether their 

participation would “divert [their] efforts and attention from 

the military offensive abroad to the legal defensive at home.” 

Eisentrager, 339 U.S. at 779 (emphasis added). The JCIP 

proceedings are irrelevant to that inquiry because, unlike in

habeas proceedings, U.S. assistance in Afghan criminal 

proceedings is a part of the “military offensive abroad.” One 

of the chief objectives of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan is to 

 

Al Maqaleh II obtain so long as the place of detention lies within an 

active theater of war. The judiciary as an institution is wholly 

incapable of making Appellant Amanatullah’s proposed 

installation-by-installation factual inquiry. We are not the warfighting branch of our government. Drawing these distinctions 

would carry us far afield from the “core areas of judicial 

competence” and intensify the likelihood of error where the cost of 

judicial error could be catastrophically high. Lebron v. Rumsfeld, 

670 F.3d 540, 552 (4th Cir. 2012); cf. Vance v. Rumsfeld, 701 F.3d 

193, 200 (7th Cir. 2012) (en banc).

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deny our enemies a haven by building an Afghan state

capable of controlling its territory. See, e.g., The President’s 

Remarks at the United States Military Academy at West 

Point, New York, 2009 DAILY COMP. PRES. DOC. 962, at 3–4

(Dec. 1, 2009); The President’s Remarks to the American 

Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 43 WEEKLY 

COMP. PRES. DOC. 165, 166–68 (Feb. 15, 2007). Part of our

state-building enterprise is the fostering of a judiciary capable 

of administering Afghanistan’s criminal laws. See, e.g., DEP’T 

OF DEFENSE, PROGRESS TOWARD SECURITY AND STABILITY IN 

AFGHANISTAN 74–78 (Apr. 2012), available at

http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/Report_Final_SecDef_04_

27_12.pdf. Whether to devote available military resources to

the support of the Afghan criminal justice system or to the 

pursuit of other objectives is the President’s choice to make. 

His wartime resource-allocation decisions do not open the 

door to the diversion of those resources “from the military 

offensive abroad to the legal defensive at home.” Eisentrager, 

339 U.S. at 779. 

Eisentrager firmly supports our conclusion. During its

occupation of Germany, the United States participated in a 

host of military tribunals convened to try former Nazi 

officials for war crimes. The United States convened its own 

military commissions in Germany and also participated in the 

International Military Tribunal (IMT), an international body

convened by agreement among the Allied Powers. See

generally Charles Fairman, Some New Problems of the 

Constitution Following the Flag, 1 STAN. L. REV. 587 (1949);

see also Agreement for the Prosecution and Punishment of the 

Major War Criminals of the European Axis (London 

Agreement), August 8, 1945, 59 Stat. 1544, 8 U.N.T.S. 279. 

Suffice it to say that U.S. involvement in these tribunals went 

far beyond mere mentoring. See generally ROBERT CONOT,

JUSTICE AT NUREMBERG (1993); see also Charter of the 

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33

International Military Tribunal, Aug. 8, 1945, 59 Stat. 1544, 

1546, 82 U.N.T.S. 279. Notwithstanding the resources 

expended in these tribunals, the Supreme Court concluded 

that habeas proceedings would divert “efforts and attention 

away from the military offensive abroad to the legal defensive 

at home.” Eisentrager, 339 U.S. at 779. We think the reason 

for this is simple: military commissions are a part of the war 

effort, see Madsen v. Kinsella, 343 U.S. 341, 360 (1952)

(military commissions necessary for “occupying power to 

discharge its responsibilities fully”); In re Yamashita, 327 

U.S. 1, 11–12 (1946) (military commissions are “important 

incident to conduct of war”), whereas habeas proceedings are 

not. Because the Nuremberg trials played no role in 

Eisentrager, the JCIP trials play no role here. 

The Appellants separately attack another practical 

obstacle we identified in Al Maqaleh II, to wit, the disruption 

of the relationship between the U.S. and Afghan governments

potentially created by extension of the Suspension Clause to 

Bagram. Al Maqaleh II ̧ 605 F.3d at 99. The Appellants claim 

to have evidence that should allay our concern: a letter, 

addressed to the Appellants’ counsel and written at their 

behest, signed by the Afghan President’s Chief of Staff, 

Abdul Karim Khurram. The letter, they argue, establishes 

that the Afghan government prefers the extension of 

Suspension Clause jurisdiction. In the letter, the author 

thanks the Appellants’ counsel for their visit and writes:

The Government of Afghanistan was never been [sic]

informed of the transfer and imprisonment of [the 

Appellants]. We are unaware of the number of foreign 

nationals caught outside Afghanistan and brought to 

Bagram. We have no desire for them to remain on our 

territory. Furthermore, the Government of 

Afghanistan favors these individual [sic] having 

access to a fair judicial process and adjudication of 

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34

their case [sic] by a competent court. I hope this 

conformation of the Afghan Government position will 

allow you to pursue your efforts on behalf of 

[Appellant] al-Bakri.

Letter from Abdul Karim Khurram, Chief of Staff to the 

President of the Islamic Republic of Afg., to Ramzi Kassem 

and Tina Foster (Sept. 19, 2012), JA 899.

The district court concluded that the letter did not 

represent the Afghan government’s formal policy on the 

detention of non-Afghan enemy combatants because it was a 

private letter written to a private party. Al Maqaleh III, 899 F. 

Supp. 2d at 20; Amanatullah, 904 F. Supp. 2d at 56. The 

district court’s assessment seems reasonable but the letter 

raises deeper concerns. We recently made clear that the

President alone conducts the nation’s foreign policy and it is 

to him that we turn for authoritative statements on our 

relations with foreign powers. See Zivotofsky ex rel. 

Zivotofsky v. Sec’y of State, 725 F.3d 197, 211, 218–219 

(D.C. Cir. 2013); see also United States v. Curtiss-Wright 

Exp. Corp., 299 U.S. 304, 319 (1936) (“The President is the 

sole organ of the nation in its external relations, and its sole 

representative with foreign nations.” (quotation marks 

omitted)); cf. Munaf, 553 U.S. at 700–02. Trying to divine the 

letter’s meaning would carry us beyond the bounds of our 

authority and into the exclusive “ ‘province . . . of the 

Executive.’ ” Dep’t of Navy v. Egan, 484 U.S. 518, 529 

(1988) (quoting Haig v. Agee, 453 U.S. 280, 293–94 (1981)). 

Constitutional concerns aside, we also lack the 

institutional wherewithal to assign to the letter its proper 

weight. Foreign affairs are complicated and require a political 

adroitness courts simply cannot supply. See Crosby v. Nat’l 

Foreign Trade Council, 530 U.S. 363, 386 (2000) (noting that 

courts lack competence to deal with “nuances of the foreign 

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35

policy of the United States” (quotation marks omitted));

Container Corp. of Am. v. Franchise Tax Bd., 463 U.S. 159, 

194 (1983) (“This Court has little competence in determining 

precisely when foreign nations will be offended by particular 

acts . . . .”). This case proves the point. Contemporaneously 

with the writing of the letter, other Afghan officials 

apparently issued public statements on Afghanistan’s detainee 

policy which conflict with the letter’s rather cryptic statement. 

See Al Maqaleh III, 899 F. Supp. 2d at 20 & n.4 (citing 

Charlie Savage & Graham Bowley, U.S. to Retain Role as a 

Jailer in Afghanistan, N.Y. TIMES, Sept. 6, 2012, at A1 

(describing statements of high-ranking Afghan official calling 

for United States to continue to detain non-Afghan 

detainees)). In light of this apparent conflict, how would we

decide what Afghanistan’s policy in fact is? The short answer 

is we are foreclosed from doing so. Because we lack the 

competence and, more importantly, the power to negotiate the 

subtleties of international politics, we run the very high risk of 

misstating Afghanistan’s formal policy and “embarrass[ing] 

the executive arm of the government in conducting foreign 

relations.” Ex parte Republic of Peru, 318 U.S. 578, 588 

(1943). The facts of this case confirm the wisdom of the 

Framers’ decision to make the President the leader, and the 

judiciary a follower, on foreign policy issues. See United 

States v. Lee, 106 U.S. (16 Otto) 196, 209 (1882); United 

States v. Palmer, 16 U.S. (3 Wheat.) 610, 634–35 (1818) 

(Marshall, C.J.).

14

 14 Even if the Appellants correctly characterize the letter, our 

analysis of the third factor would be unchanged. We did not 

premise our analysis in Al Maqaleh II on a belief that extending the 

Suspension Clause to Bagram would in fact disrupt the U.S.-

Afghan diplomatic relationship. We held only that our uncertainty 

counseled hesitation. Al Maqaleh II, 605 F.3d at 99. Even if we 

were no longer uncertain about the implications of extending the 

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36

3

The Appellants complain that the district court weighed 

the third factor too heavily in its analysis. See al-Maqaleh Br. 

15 (describing district court’s use of third factor as “trump 

card in the jurisdictional analysis” (quotation marks omitted)). 

But the district court gave no more weight to the factor than 

did we in Al Maqaleh II. Because the facts did not relevantly 

change after Al Maqaleh II, the district court properly applied 

our precedent.

Ultimately, then, the Appellants’ quarrel is with how we 

weigh the third factor. They argue that by emphasizing the 

third factor over the other two, we abandon our watchtower 

on the wall separating the powers of our government. This 

argument is meritless because we are bound by Al Maqaleh 

II’s weighing of the factors and we, like the district court,

have followed our precedent here. Even if we could revisit Al 

Maqaleh II, however, we think the Appellants’ argument

entirely misplaced in the context of petitions arising from a 

war zone. The Supreme Court has held that the Suspension 

Clause is a cornerstone of that wall, Boumediene, 553 U.S. at 

743–46, and, in particular, a redoubt against executive power 

run amok, see Lonchar v. Thomas, 517 U.S. 314, 322 (1996). 

But in this case, we must place another separation-of-powers 

concern on the scale. The prosecution of our wars is 

committed uniquely to the political branches and we rarely 

scrutinize it. Egan, 484 U.S. at 529 (“[U]nless Congress has 

specifically provided otherwise, courts traditionally have been 

reluctant to intrude upon the authority of the Executive in 

military and national security affairs.”); Haig, 453 U.S. at 292 

(“Matters intimately related to foreign policy and national 

 

protection of the writ, Afghanistan’s current status as a war zone is 

sufficient to tilt the third factor strongly in the Government’s favor.

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37

security are rarely proper subjects for judicial intervention.”); 

Mathews v. Diaz, 426 U.S. 67, 81 n.17 (1976) (“[T]he 

conduct of foreign relations [and] the war power . . . . are so 

exclusively entrusted to the political branches of government 

as to be largely immune from judicial inquiry or interference.” 

(quotation marks omitted)); see also Regan v. Wald, 468 U.S. 

222, 242 (1984); Oetjen v. Cent. Leather Co., 246 U.S. 297, 

302 (1918). Justice Jackson put it best: 

[T]he very nature of executive decisions as to foreign 

policy is political, not judicial. Such decisions are 

wholly confided by our Constitution to the political 

departments of the government, Executive and 

Legislative. They are delicate, complex, and involve 

large elements of prophecy. They are and should be 

undertaken only by those directly responsible to the 

people whose welfare they advance or imperil. They 

are decisions of a kind for which the Judiciary has 

neither aptitude, facilities nor responsibility and have 

long been held to belong in the domain of political 

power not subject to judicial intrusion or inquiry. 

Chi. & S. Air Lines v. Waterman S.S. Corp., 333 U.S. 103, 

111 (1948). Judicial inquiry into the President’s detention 

decisions, which are among his congressionally conferred war 

powers, thus raises grave concerns about encroachment on the 

President’s authority. See Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. 

Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 635 (1952) (Jackson, J., concurring).

Boumediene recognized this tension and concluded that,

at Guantanamo, separation-of-powers considerations weigh in 

favor of extending the Suspension Clause beyond the 

sovereign borders of the United States. Boumediene, 553 U.S. 

at 796–98. But Guantanamo does not lie in a theater of war; it 

is far removed from the conflicts which produced its inmates. 

Id. at 770. Our forces at Bagram, by contrast, are actively 

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38

engaged in a war against a determined enemy. Like the 

Supreme Court, we think this is a critical distinction. See id.

(“[I]f the detention facility were located in an active theater of 

war, arguments that issuing the writ would be impracticable 

or anomalous would have more weight.” (quotation marks 

omitted)). Detention decisions made at Bagram are 

inextricably a part of the war in Afghanistan. Reviewing 

those decisions would intrude upon the President’s war 

powers in a way that reviewing Guantanamo detentions does

not. For that reason, the third factor weighs “overwhelmingly 

in favor of the position of the United States.” Al Maqaleh II, 

605 F.3d at 97. We take exception, then, to the Appellants’ 

accusation that we are abandoning our post. To the contrary, 

respect for the separation of powers impels us to stay our 

hand.

IV

The Appellants once again ask us to consider the 

President’s purpose in detaining them at Bagram. Their 

argument, given its most generous construction, proceeds as 

follows: if the President has a choice to detain an alien at a 

location to which the writ runs,15 but instead chooses to detain 

the alien at Bagram (or some other foreign locale) because the 

writ does not reach there, he has engaged in impermissible 

“manipulation” which weighs in favor of extending the 

Suspension Clause to the site of detention. In Al Maqaleh II, 

although noting that the Supreme Court’s three factors may 

 15 We note that there is little reason to question the President’s 

choice as a matter of common sense. The four Appellants who 

allege a location of capture all allege capture in Asia, including 

Pakistan. On its face, the President’s choice to detain in central 

Asia aliens captured in that area of the world instead of transporting 

them across the globe hardly arouses suspicion.

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39

not be “exhaustive” and that evasion “might constitute an 

additional factor,” we nevertheless rejected their argument for 

two reasons. Al Maqaleh II, 605 F.3d at 98, 99. We first

concluded that the petitioners’ concern was “speculation” and 

not “a reality.” Id. at 98. We also found utterly incredible the 

suggestion that the President, who detained the petitioners at 

Bagram well in advance of the 2008 Boumediene decision, 

could have “predict[ed] the Boumediene decision long before 

it came down” and made his detention decisions on the basis 

of that prediction. Id. at 99. 

In these appeals, however, the Appellants claim that their 

argument is no longer naked speculation but is supported by 

evidence that the President chose to detain them at Bagram in 

order to evade habeas review. First, relying on two 

conclusory declarations from former Executive Branch 

officials, they contend that the United States originally chose 

Guantanamo and Bagram as detention sites in part to avoid 

judicial review. Second, relying primarily on news reports,

they allege that transfers from Bagram to Guantanamo 

declined while transfers to Bagram from Guantanamo 

increased after Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466 (2004) (holding 

that federal courts have statutory habeas jurisdiction over 

petitions filed by Guantanamo detainees), demonstrating that 

the Government detains persons at Bagram in order to avoid 

habeas review. Finally, relying on a declaration from an 

unrelated case, the Appellants allege that officials within the 

Department of Justice discussed detainee transfers and habeas 

jurisdiction before Rasul issued, indicating that the Executive 

Branch was “deliberating the issues of prisoner transfer and 

habeas jurisdiction” prior to Boumediene. al-Maqaleh Br. 45.

We previously expressed our “doubt that [the alleged 

manipulation] goes to either the second or third of the 

Supreme Court’s enumerated factors.” Al Maqaleh II, 605 

F.3d at 98. Today we hold that it does not. The Appellants 

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apparently agree and, seizing on the Supreme Court’s 

statement that “at least three factors are relevant in 

determining the reach of the Suspension Clause,” 

Boumediene, 553 U.S. at 766 (emphasis added), call on us to 

make manipulation an “additional factor,” al-Maqaleh Br. 41. 

Before deciding this question, we must clearly identify the

species of alleged manipulation. The Appellants do not allege 

that they were ever within territory to which the Suspension 

Clause runs before being removed from that territory. 

Instead, they allege that the United States captured them

beyond the Suspension Clause’s reach and then detained them

beyond it. They do not argue that the United States stripped 

them of a right they previously possessed but instead that it

denied them the opportunity to acquire a right.

We decline the Appellants’ request to create a new factor. 

Assuming we have authority to create additional factors, these

cases are hardly the ones in which to do it.16 The Appellants 

claim that their evidence moves their claims from speculation 

 16 When considering whether to create new factors at all, 

caution must be our watchword. Boumediene marked the first time 

in our constitutional history that aliens held outside the sovereign 

territory of the United States were accorded any constitutional 

protection. Boumediene, 553 U.S. at 770. In light of that fact, we 

cannot read the Court’s statement that “at least three factors are 

relevant in determining the reach of the Suspension Clause” as an 

invitation for inferior-court innovation. As a novel constitutional 

development, we are loath to expand Boumediene’s reach without 

specific guidance from the Supreme Court, particularly where 

expansion would carry us further into the realm of war and foreign 

policy. Restraint is also appropriate here because the evasion 

concern was brought to the Supreme Court’s attention in 

Boumediene but the Court declined to consider it as a factor. See 

Br. Amicus Curiae of the Am. Bar Ass’n in Support of Pet’rs, 

Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723 (2008), 2007 WL 2456942.

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41

to reality. But the line they propose between the two is an 

illusion. Their allegations and supporting evidence suggest, at 

most, that the President might have considered at some point 

in time the reach of the writ as one factor among others in his 

decision to detain abroad (not necessarily at Bagram) certain 

unidentified detainees. They do not allege, nor do they have 

evidence suggesting, that any official ever considered the 

reach of the writ in deciding where to detain them. Any alien 

detained abroad could rely on the same unparticularized 

allegations and evidence to argue for the extension of the 

Suspension Clause.

17 If that is all a detainee need do, we 

perceive no identifiable limitation on the extraterritorial reach 

of our constitutional habeas jurisdiction. Reduced to its core, 

the Appellants’ argument becomes an appeal for universal 

extraterritorial application of the Suspension Clause. We 

again reject any argument tending toward this result. “If it 

were the Supreme Court’s intention to declare such a 

sweeping application, it would surely have said so.” Al 

Maqaleh II, 605 F.3d at 95.18 

 17 Indeed, the purported effect of potential habeas jurisdiction 

on the President’s detention decisions was debated even before the 

Supreme Court’s Boumediene decision. See Al Maqaleh III, 899 F. 

Supp. 2d at 24 (noting that assertions of evasion were “well known” 

before Al Maqaleh II); see also Joshua L. Dratel, The Legal 

Narrative, in THE TORTURE PAPERS: THE ROAD TO ABU GHRAIB

xxi–xxii (2005) (pre-Boumediene discussion of Justice Department 

memoranda considering effect of executive concern about habeas 

jurisdiction on detention policy). 

18 Because the Appellants have provided no “specific 

indication” that discovery might produce any particularized 

evidence of evasion—and effectively concede the existence of nonevasive reasons for detaining them at Bagram—we conclude that 

the district court’s denial of jurisdictional discovery on this 

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42

Our holding should not be read, however, to suggest that 

evasion of habeas review never raises constitutional hackles. 

An allegation that an alien detained outside our habeas 

jurisdiction was either captured or previously detained within 

our habeas jurisdiction would be far more likely to trigger our 

Suspension Clause jurisdiction than the allegations here. 

“[A]t the absolute minimum, the Suspension Clause protects 

the writ ‘as it existed in 1789.’ ” St. Cyr, 533 U.S. at 301 

(quoting Felker v. Turpin, 518 U.S. 651, 663–64 (1996)). 

English common law fundamentally informs our 

understanding of the substantive content of the writ as of

1789. See Boumediene, 553 U.S. at 742, 746–52; McNally v. 

Hill, 293 U.S. 131, 136–38 (1934). Of particular importance 

is Parliament’s codification of the common law writ in the 

Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, 31 Car. 2, c.2 (Eng.). See

Boumediene, 552 U.S. at 742 (explaining influence of Act on 

development of writ in the colonies); id.at 845 (Scalia, J., 

dissenting) (same); THE FEDERALIST NO. 83, at 499

(Alexander Hamilton) (Clinton Rossiter ed. 1961); Dallin H. 

Oaks, Habeas Corpus in the States—1776–1865, 32 U. CHI.

L. REV. 243, 252 (1965). Subject to certain exceptions, 

section 12 of the Habeas Corpus Act forbad the transportation 

of any “inhabitant or resi[de]nt” of England or Wales as a 

prisoner to “places beyond the seas.” 31 Car. 2, c. 2, § 12 

(Eng.); see also Boumediene, 553 U.S. at 845–46 (Scalia, J., 

dissenting); Kiyemba v. Obama (Kiyemba II), 561 F.3d 509, 

523 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (Griffith, J., concurring in judgment in 

part and dissenting in part); Abdah v. Obama, 630 F.3d 1047,

1049–51 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (Griffith, J., dissenting from denial 

of initial hearing en banc). 

 

question was not an abuse of discretion. Cheyenne Arapaho Tribes 

of Okla., 558 F.3d at 596. 

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43

Were a detainee to allege capture by the United States

within our constitutional habeas jurisdiction followed by 

transfer to U.S. custody in territory beyond it, his entreaty for

the protection of the Suspension Clause would be much more 

compelling than the Appellants’. Cf. Kiyemba II, 561 F.3d at

513 (“[A] potential transfer out of the jurisdiction of the court 

is a proper subject of statutory habeas relief . . . .”). A 

contrary rule risks rendering the Suspension Clause nugatory 

because the President could defeat it at his pleasure by 

transporting prisoners to U.S. detention facilities outside the 

United States and beyond the reach of our jurisdiction. Here, 

however, the Appellants were captured in places to which the

Suspension Clause unquestionably does not run and therefore

never secured a Suspension Clause right requiring our 

protection. This form of evasion does not implicate the 

concerns that led Parliament to ban the spiriting away of 

prisoners beyond the reach of the writ. 

Because the Suspension Clause does not run to Bagram, 

section 7 of the 2006 MCA does not effect an unconstitutional 

suspension of the writ. We therefore affirm the judgments of 

the district court in Al Maqaleh III (Nos. 12-5404, 12-5401 

and 12-5399) and Amanatullah (No. 12-5407). We remand 

Hamidullah (No. 12-5410) for further proceedings consistent 

with this opinion. 

So ordered.

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