Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-12-05017/USCOURTS-caDC-12-05017-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 22, 2013 Decided January 17, 2014

No. 12-5017

ABDUL RAHIM ABDUL RAZAK AL JANKO,

APPELLANT

v.

ROBERT M. GATES, FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, ET AL.,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:10-cv-01702)

Paul L. Hoffman argued the cause for the appellant. 

Terrence P. Collingsworth, Jennifer Green and Judith Brown 

Chomsky were on brief. Catherine E. Sweetser entered an 

appearance. 

Janis H. Brennan was on brief for amici curiae Scholars 

of State Law and International Law in support of the 

appellant.

Sydney Foster, Attorney, United States Department of 

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

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Matthew M. 

Collette, Attorney, Mary Hampton Mason, Senior Trial 

USCA Case #12-5017 Document #1475659 Filed: 01/17/2014 Page 1 of 20
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Counsel, and Siegmund F. Fuchs, Trial Attorney, were on 

brief.

Before: HENDERSON, ROGERS and TATEL, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge HENDERSON.

KAREN LECRAFT HENDERSON, Circuit Judge: As part of

its global war on terrorism, the United States detained Abdul 

Rahim Abdul Razak al Janko in Afghanistan and at United 

States Naval Station Guantanamo Bay (Guantanamo) in Cuba 

for seven years before the district court granted him a writ of 

habeas corpus and ordered that diplomatic efforts be 

undertaken to secure his release. He now seeks to recover for 

injuries sustained during his detention. Because the Congress 

has, in unmistakable language, denied the district court 

jurisdiction to entertain his claims, we affirm the dismissal of 

his claims.

I. Background

The Appellant is a Syrian citizen who alleges that he 

travelled to Afghanistan in January 2000. Shortly thereafter, 

the Taliban forced him to confess to spying for the United 

States and Israel and imprisoned him in Kandahar, where he 

was tortured by his Taliban captors. After the attacks on our 

homeland on September 11, 2001, U.S. forces commenced 

military operations in Afghanistan to subdue al Qaeda and its 

Taliban allies. Shortly after the operations began, the new 

Afghan government liberated the Appellant’s prison. 

Allegedly on the basis of misinterpreted intelligence,

however, U.S. officials identified the Appellant as an enemy 

combatant.

1

 Pursuant to the President’s congressionally 

 1 The Executive Branch defines “enemy combatant” as “an 

individual who was part of or supporting Taliban or al Qaida forces, 

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conferred authority, see Authorization for Use of Military 

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

(2001), 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); see 

also Ali v. Obama, 736 F.3d 542, 544 (D.C. Cir. 2013), U.S. 

forces captured the Appellant and transferred him to 

Guantanamo in May 2002. He alleges that, for the next seven 

years, U.S. officials subjected him to torture, physical and 

psychological degradation and other forms of mistreatment. 

During his detention, two Combatant Status Review Tribunals

(CSRTs)—executive-branch tribunals convened to determine 

the status of Guantanamo detainees, see Maqaleh v. Hagel, 

Nos. 12-5404 et al., 2013 WL 6767861, at *8 (D.C. Cir. Dec. 

24, 2013)—determined that the Appellant was lawfully 

detained as an enemy combatant.2

The Appellant sought to obtain release from detention by 

filing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in district court. 

After the Supreme Court decided that Guantanamo detainees

have a constitutional right to challenge the basis of their 

detentions, Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723, 771 (2008), 

 

or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the 

United States or its coalition partners.” Parhat v. Gates, 532 F.3d

834, 838 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (quotation marks omitted); see also AlBihani v. Obama, 590 F.3d 866, 872 (D.C. Cir. 2010) (adopting 

executive-branch definition of enemy combatant in habeas cases).

2 In addition to the CSRT decisions, two Administrative 

Review Boards (ARBs) determined that the Appellant was properly 

detained. The United States Secretary of Defense (Secretary)

established the ARBs to review whether a detainee should remain

detained “based on an assessment of various factors, including the 

continued threat posed by each detainee.” Hamad v. Gates, 732 

F.3d 990, 994 (9th Cir. 2013); see also Boumediene v. Bush, 553 

U.S. 723, 821 (2008) (Roberts, C.J., dissenting) (describing ARBs). 

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the district court granted his petition, Al Ginco v. Obama, 626 

F. Supp. 2d 123, 130 (D.D.C. 2009), and the United States 

released him in October 2009. Nearly one year later, he filed 

a complaint in district court against the United States and 

twenty-six U.S. officials (collectively Government) for 

injuries he suffered during his detention. His complaint, as 

amended, stated claims under the Alien Tort Statute, 28 

U.S.C. § 1350; the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. 

§§ 1346(b), 2671 et seq.; the Enforcement Act of 1871, 42 

U.S.C. § 1985; and for violation of his Fourth and Fifth 

Amendment rights under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named 

Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971). 

Holding that, inter alia, section 7(a) of the Military 

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

§ 7(a), 120 Stat. 2600, 2635 (codified at 28 U.S.C. § 2241(e) 

(2006)), ousted it of jurisdiction, the district court dismissed

the Appellant’s claims. Janko v. Gates, 831 F. Supp. 2d 272,

278–81 (D.D.C. 2011). He timely appealed. 

II. Analysis

A. Standard of Review

“We review de novo the district court’s grant of a motion 

to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.” Oakey v. 

U.S. Airways Pilots Disability Income Plan, 723 F.3d 227, 

231 (D.C. Cir. 2013). Because the Government has not

disputed the facts relevant to jurisdiction, we accept the 

Appellant’s allegations as true and review only the district 

court’s application of the law. See Herbert v. Nat’l Acad. of 

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

The question presented in this appeal is whether the 

district court has jurisdiction over all, or any, of the 

Appellant’s claims. “Federal courts are courts of limited 

jurisdiction. They possess only that power authorized by 

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Constitution and statute . . . .” Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. 

Co. of Am., 511 U.S. 375, 377 (1994). Because the 

Appellant’s claims raise questions of federal law, they are 

within the district court’s constitutional jurisdiction. See 

Osborn v. Bank of the U.S., 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 738, 823–24 

(1824) (Marshall, C.J.). Our task, then, is to decide whether 

the Congress has conferred authority on the district court to 

hear his claims and, if it has not, whether the Congress has 

constitutional authority to withhold jurisdiction.

The first question turns on the meaning of section 7(a) of 

the MCA. That section provides:

(e)(1) No 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.

(2) Except as provided in paragraphs (2) and (3) of 

section 1005(e) of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 

(10 U.S.C. 801 note), no court, justice, or judge shall 

have jurisdiction to hear or consider any other action 

against the United States or its agents relating to any 

aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or 

conditions of confinement of an alien who is or was 

detained by the United States and has been determined 

by the United States to have been properly detained as 

an enemy combatant or is awaiting such 

determination.

28 U.S.C. § 2241(e) (2006). In Al-Zahrani v. Rodriguez, we 

held that section 2241(e)(2) withdraws the district court’s

jurisdiction over damages actions regarding any aspect of the 

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detention of an alien previously determined by a CSRT to be 

properly detained as an enemy combatant. 669 F.3d 315, 318–

19 (D.C. Cir. 2012); see also Hamad v. Gates, 732 F.3d 990, 

995–96 (9th Cir. 2013); cf. Al-Nashiri v. MacDonald, No. 12-

35475, 2013 WL 6698066, at *3 (9th Cir. Dec. 20, 2013). 

Although the Al-Zahrani holding covers the Appellant’s 

claims, he argues that the fact that he obtained a writ of

habeas corpus, which the Al-Zahrani detainees did not, moves 

his claims outside section 2241(e)(2)’s ambit. And even if it 

does not, he argues, section 2241(e)(2) is unconstitutional as 

applied to his claims. We consider each argument in turn.

B. Statutory Construction

“The preeminent canon of statutory interpretation 

requires us to ‘presume that [the] legislature says in a statute 

what it means and means in a statute what it says there.’ 

Thus, our inquiry begins with the statutory text, and ends 

there as well if the text is unambiguous.” BedRoc Ltd., LLC v. 

United States, 541 U.S. 176, 183 (2004) (plurality opinion of 

Rehnquist, C.J.) (quoting Conn. Nat’l Bank v. Germain, 503 

U.S. 249, 253–254 (1992)); see also United States v. Ron Pair 

Enters., Inc., 489 U.S. 235, 241 (1989).3

 The parties agree on 

the relevant text: 

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

hear or consider any other action against the United 

States or its agents relating to any aspect of the 

detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of 

 3 The Appellant argues that we need not decide section 

2241(e)(2)’s meaning because the Supreme Court struck it down in 

Boumediene. We have previously rejected this argument and do so 

again. Al-Zahrani, 669 F.3d at 319; Kiyemba v. Obama (Kiyemba 

II), 561 F.3d 509, 512 n.1 (D.C. Cir. 2009); see also Al-Nashiri, 

2013 WL 6698066, at *4; Hamad, 732 F.3d at 1000. 

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confinement of an alien who is or was detained by the 

United States and has been determined by the United 

States to have been properly detained as an enemy 

combatant . . . .

28 U.S.C. § 2241(e)(2) (emphasis added). This action is 

undoubtedly an action (1) other than habeas corpus or direct 

review of a CSRT determination (2) against the United States 

or its agents (3) brought by an alien (4) previously detained 

by the United States, which action (5) relates to an aspect of 

his detention. The crux of the parties’ dispute is whether the 

Appellant was “determined by the United States to have been 

properly detained as an enemy combatant.” Id. (emphasis 

added).

1. Meaning of “the United States”

The Government argues that the statute bars the 

Appellant’s claims because “the United States” means only

“the Executive Branch.” Because the CSRT is an executivebranch tribunal, the Government contends that the first 

CSRT’s determination that the Appellant was properly 

detained triggered the jurisdictional bar. The Appellant,

citing to a dictionary and to cases interpreting unrelated 

statutes, argues that “the United States” ordinarily

encompasses all three branches of the federal government and

not solely the Executive Branch. He argues that the bar does 

not apply to him because the district court’s grant of the writ 

is a determination by the United States “that he was never

properly detained as an enemy combatant.” Pl.-Appellant’s 

Opening Br. 2 (Janko Br.), Janko v. Gates, No. 12-5017 (D.C. 

Cir. Jan. 9, 2013) (emphasis in original). 

The Appellant is of course correct that, in the absence of 

a statutory definition, we give statutory language its “ordinary 

or natural meaning.” FDIC v. Meyer, 510 U.S. 471, 476 

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(1994); see also Engine Mfrs. Ass’n v. S. Coast Air Quality 

Mgmt. Dist., 541 U.S. 246, 252 (2004). The rule emanates 

from the common-sense notion that the Congress, like any 

speaker, desires to be understood and, “in the absence of 

contrary indication,” Freeman v. Quicken Loans, Inc., 132 S. 

Ct. 2034, 2042 (2012), uses words in the way they are

ordinarily used and understood, see Watson v. United States, 

552 U.S. 74, 79 (2007); Maillard v. Lawrence, 57 U.S. (16 

How.) 251, 261 (1853). But “plain meaning” takes us only so 

far. Because many words are susceptible of multiple

meanings, plain meaning is frequently not so plain. The 

expression “the United States” is a case in point. Those 

words in a newspaper article about World Cup competition—

“the United States took an early lead on its way to defeating 

Mexico”—likely mean something quite different from the 

same words in an article about foreign policy—“the United 

States has entered bilateral trade talks with Mexico.” Turning 

to the dictionary entry for “United States” is unlikely to 

resolve the ambiguity. See A. Raymond Randolph, 

Dictionaries, Plain Meaning, and Context in Statutory 

Interpretation, 17 HARV. J.L. & PUB. POL’Y 71, 72 (1994)

(“[C]iting to dictionaries creates a sort of optical illusion, 

conveying the existence of certainty—or ‘plainness’—when 

appearance may be all there is.”); see also Country Mut. Ins. 

Co. v. Am. Farm Bureau Fed’n, 876 F.2d 599, 600 (7th Cir. 

1989). Instead, our interpretation of “the United States” is 

informed by the context in which the words appear. See 

Robinson v. Shell Oil Co., 519 U.S. 337, 341 (1997); Deal v. 

United States, 508 U.S. 129, 132 (1993). 

 If “the United States” seems “ambiguous in isolation,” it 

is “clarified by the remainder of the statutory scheme[] 

because the same terminology is used elsewhere in a context 

that makes its meaning clear . . . .” United Sav. Ass’n of Tex. 

v. Timbers of Inwood Forest Assocs., Ltd., 484 U.S. 365, 371 

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(1988). The statute applies to any alien “detained by the 

United States” and “determined by the United States to have 

been properly detained as an enemy combatant.” 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2241(e)(2) (emphases added). In light of the “established 

canon of construction that similar language contained within 

the same section of a statute must be accorded a consistent 

meaning,” the Congress’s use of the same words to describe

the detaining authority and the authority responsible for 

making the propriety-of-detention determination leads us to 

conclude that they are one and the same. Nat’l Credit Union 

Admin. v. First Nat’l Bank & Trust Co., 522 U.S. 479, 501 

(1998); see also Powerex Corp. v. Reliant Energy Servs., Inc., 

551 U.S. 224, 232 (2007). As the Congress well understood 

when it enacted the MCA, the detention of aliens as enemy 

combatants is an exclusively executive function. See 

Boumediene, 553 U.S. at 782–83 (distinguishing between 

those “detained by executive order” at Guantanamo and those 

held pursuant to criminal sentence); Hamdi, 542 U.S. at 516–

17 (holding AUMF gives “the Executive . . . the authority to 

detain citizens who qualify as ‘enemy combatants’ ”); Rasul 

v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466, 475, 483 n.15, 485 (2004) (recognizing 

that detainees at Guantanamo are in exclusively executive 

detention); Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non–

Citizens in the War Against Terrorism, 66 Fed. Reg. 57,833, 

57,834 (Nov. 13, 2001) (executive order authorizing detention 

of enemy combatants); see also Oral Argument 13:17, Janko 

v. Gates, No. 12-5017 (D.C. Cir. Oct. 22, 2013) (The 

Appellant’s counsel conceding that “courts ordinarily don’t 

detain people so the reference to ‘the United States’ in terms 

of an ‘alien detained by the United States’ ordinarily” refers 

to the Executive Branch); cf. Uthman v. Obama, 637 F.3d 

400, 402 (D.C. Cir. 2011). Because the detaining authority

referred to as “the United States” in section 2241(e)(2) is 

exclusively the Executive Branch, and the determination 

triggering the jurisdictional bar is made by the detaining 

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authority, a “determin[ation] by the United States” is one

made by the Executive Branch. 

Section 2241(e)(1), enacted as part of the same statutory 

subsection, confirms our interpretation.4

 The provision ousts 

all federal courts of jurisdiction over a habeas petition filed by 

any alien “detained by the United States” and “determined by 

the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy 

combatant.” 28 U.S.C. § 2241(e)(1). This provision is plainly

in pari materia with section 2241(e)(2) and so we must give a 

consistent interpretation to the two provisions’ identical 

language. See Nijhawan v. Holder, 557 U.S. 29, 39 (2009) 

(“Where, as here, Congress uses similar statutory language 

 4 We recognize that Boumediene struck down section 

2241(e)(1) as it applies to Guantanamo. Maqaleh, 2013 WL 

6767861, at *18; Kiyemba II, 561 F.3d at 512 n.2. Boumediene

does not, however, preclude us from considering section 2241(e)(1) 

when interpreting section 2241(e)(2). Our task is to give section 

2241(e)(2) the meaning it was understood to have when the 

Congress enacted it. See Republic of Argentina v. Weltover, Inc., 

504 U.S. 607, 612–13 (1992) (“The meaning of [the relevant text] 

is the meaning generally attached to that term . . . at the time the 

statute was enacted.”); Perrin v. United States, 444 U.S. 37, 42 

(1979) (“[W]ords will be interpreted as taking their ordinary, 

contemporary, common meaning . . . at the time Congress enacted 

the statute . . . .”); see also Amoco Prod. Co v. S. Ute Indian Tribe, 

526 U.S. 865, 873–74 (1999). Particularly because the two 

provisions were enacted as part of one statutory section and are in 

pari materia—indeed, paragraph (e)(2) refers to paragraph (e)(1), 

see Boumediene, 553 U.S. at 737—we cannot apprehend the 

original meaning of section 2241(e)(2) within the context of the 

“whole law” enacted by the Congress without reference to section 

2241(e)(1). United States v. Heirs of Boisdoré, 49 U.S. (8 How.) 

113, 122 (1849); see also 2B NORMAN J. SINGER & J.D. SHAMBIE 

SINGER, SUTHERLAND STATUTORY CONSTRUCTION § 51.04 (7th 

ed. 2007). 

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and similar statutory structure in two adjoining provisions, it 

normally intends similar interpretations.”); cf. Erlenbaugh v. 

United States, 409 U.S. 239, 244 (1972). This we can easily 

do. In a statute depriving federal courts of jurisdiction to 

decide the lawfulness of executive detention, the phrase

“determined by the United States” must refer to an executivebranch determination. We will not “ ‘attribute a 

schizophrenic intent to the’ ” Congress by reading “the United 

States” to refer to executive-branch determinations in section 

2241(e)(1) but not in section 2241(e)(2). Yousuf v. Samantar, 

451 F.3d 248, 256 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (quoting Marek v. 

Chesny, 473 U.S. 1, 21 (1985)).

5

Finally, we find support for our interpretation in the

version of section 2241(e)(2) which the MCA amended. See 

Johnson v. United States, 529 U.S. 694, 710 (2000) (“[W]hen 

a new legal regime develops out of an identifiable 

predecessor, it is reasonable to look to the precursor in 

fathoming the new law.”); see also Hamilton v. Rathbone, 175 

U.S. 414, 421 (1899). The Congress originally added 28 

U.S.C. § 2241(e) to the U.S. Code in section 1005(e) of the 

Detainee Treatment Act (DTA) of 2005, Pub. L. 109-148, 

§ 1005, 119 Stat. 2739, 2742–43. Section 1005(e)(2) granted 

this Court exclusive jurisdiction to review CSRT 

determinations, see Bismullah v. Gates, 501 F.3d 178, 183 

(D.C. Cir. 2007), vacated and remanded on other grounds by

554 U.S. 913 (2008), and section 1005(e)(1) (the portion

codified at 28 U.S.C. § 2241(e)(2)) ousted the federal courts 

 5 Because the statutory text is unambiguous, we need not 

consult the MCA’s legislative history. See United States v. 

Gonzales, 520 U.S. 1, 6 (1997) (“Given the straightforward 

statutory command, there is no reason to resort to legislative 

history.”); Nat’l Shooting Sports Found., Inc. v. Jones, 716 F.3d 

200, 212 (D.C. Cir. 2013).

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of jurisdiction to consider any non-habeas claim “against the 

United States or its agents relating to any aspect of the 

detention by the Department of Defense of an alien at 

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who . . . has been determined by the 

United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia 

Circuit [D.C. Circuit]. . . to have been properly detained as an 

enemy combatant,” DTA § 1005(e)(1), 119 Stat. at 2742 

(codified at 28 U.S.C. § 2241(e)(2) (Supp. V 2005))

(emphasis added). 

Responding to the Supreme Court’s interpretation of 

section 1005(e) of the DTA, see Hamdan v. United States, 

548 U.S. 557, 572–84 (2006), the Congress amended 28 

U.S.C. § 2241(e) in the MCA. Despite retaining our review 

of CSRT determinations, see MCA § 7(a), 120 Stat. at 2636

(excepting from jurisdictional bar actions brought under 

“paragraph[] (2) . . . of section 1005(e) of the” DTA), section 

7(a) replaced both “the Department of Defense” (the detaining 

authority) and the “D.C. Circuit” (the relevant status 

determiner) with “the United States,” compare DTA 

§ 1005(e)(1), 119 Stat. at 2742, with MCA § 7(a), 120 Stat. at 

2635–36. The change is significant. Under the DTA, the 

relevant propriety-of-detention determination was made by a 

tribunal (the D.C. Circuit) independent of the detaining 

authority (the Department of Defense). Under the MCA, 

however, the Congress abandoned the independent, judicial

propriety-of-detention determination in favor of a non-judicial 

determination made by the same entity that detains the alien

(the United States). Adopting the Appellant’s interpretation

would deprive the changes made by section 7(a) of any “real 

and substantial effect” and flout the Congress’s manifest 

intent to have section 2241(e)(2)’s applicability turn on a nonUSCA Case #12-5017 Document #1475659 Filed: 01/17/2014 Page 12 of 20
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judicial status determination. Stone v. INS, 514 U.S. 386, 397 

(1995).

6

2. The Appellant’s Counterarguments 

The Appellant counters our interpretation by arguing that 

we effectively read “properly” out of the statute. His 

contention rests on the belief that the statute bars claims only 

from detainees who received “proper” CSRT determinations, 

to wit, those detainees who in fact are enemy combatants. A 

CSRT determination is “proper,” apparently, if a habeas court 

subsequently reaches the same conclusion. Because the 

district court in Al Ginco disagreed with the Appellant’s two

CSRTs, he argues that he is not in fact an enemy combatant

and section 2241(e)(2) does not apply. 

The Appellant’s argument results in a very subtle

rewriting of the statute. The statute applies to an alien 

“determined by the United States to have been properly

detained as an enemy combatant.” 28 U.S.C. § 2241(e)(2) 

 6 The Appellant views the DTA differently. He argues that,

because section 2241(e)(2) preserved this Court’s review of CSRT 

determinations, the Congress contemplated a “role” for “the 

Judiciary . . . in determining whether someone had been properly 

detained.” Appellant’s Reply Br. 10, Janko v. Gates, No. 12-5017 

(D.C. Cir. Apr. 15, 2013). Although we have since invalidated 

section 1005(e)(2) of the DTA, Bismullah v. Gates, 551 F.3d 1068, 

1072–73 (D.C. Cir. 2009), we agree that the Congress preserved a 

“role” for a particular court in the status determination process. But 

that fact does not avail him for two reasons. First, the only “role” 

was for this Court alone, not for the district court that granted his

habeas petition. Second, the relevant question is not whether the 

judiciary has a “role” in status determinations generally but rather 

which branch’s determination triggers section 2241(e)(2)’s 

jurisdictional bar. For the reasons we have already given, the 

Executive Branch’s determination alone triggers the bar.

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(emphasis added). He reads “properly” to modify 

“determined,” thereby requiring that a CSRT correctly

determine a detainee’s status in order that section 2241(e)(2) 

apply. But “properly” does not modify “determined”; it 

modifies “detained.” The phrase “properly detained as an 

enemy combatant” identifies the type of determination the 

Executive Branch must make, viz., a determination that the

detainee meets the AUMF’s criteria for enemy-combatant

status. See, e.g., Barhoumi v. Obama, 609 F.3d 416, 423, 432 

(D.C. Cir. 2010) (detainee is “properly detained pursuant to 

the AUMF” if he meets the requirements for enemy 

combatant status). But the statute does not say that the bar 

applies to an alien whom “the United States has properly

determined to have been properly detained as an enemy 

combatant.” It requires only that the Executive Branch 

determine that the AUMF authorizes the alien’s detention

without regard to the determination’s correctness. 

Conditioning the statute’s applicability on the accuracy of the 

Executive Branch’s determination would do violence to the 

statute’s clear textual directive.

7

The Appellant protests that if the bar applies even to

incorrect CSRT determinations, then it applies to every 

person detained by the United States under the AUMF. He

argues that every detained alien has at least once been 

determined by someone in the Executive Branch—a soldier or 

an intelligence operative in the field, for example—to be an 

 7 More fundamentally, the Appellant’s contention that a 

successful habeas petition makes any earlier CSRT status 

determination “improper” has no textual footing. In the very 

statutory subsection erecting the jurisdictional bar, the Congress 

ousted the district courts from considering his petition. The statute

cannot be fairly read to include within the meaning of “determined 

by the United States” a judicial decision which, in the same 

statutory section, the Congress attempted to preclude.

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enemy combatant. Cf. Boumediene, 553 U.S. at 783 

(characterizing “the CSRT process as direct review of the 

Executive’s battlefield determination that the detainee is an 

enemy combatant”). If that determination is enough, he 

argues, the mere fact of capture bars all claims for detentionrelated injuries, a result the Congress could not possibly have 

intended. 

We need not decide today the full extent of the meaning 

of “the United States.” In holding that section 2241(e)(2) 

barred claims brought on behalf of aliens determined by 

CSRTs to have been properly detained, Al-Zahrani

necessarily held that a CSRT determination is a determination 

“by the United States,” see Al-Zahrani, 669 F.3d at 317, 319, 

and we are bound by that holding, see LaShawn A. v. Barry, 

87 F.3d 1389, 1395 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (en banc). Moreover, 

whatever else “the United States” meant in 2006, “the 

contextual background against which Congress was 

legislating, including relevant practices of the Executive 

Branch which presumably informed Congress’s decision, 

prior legislative acts, and historical events” makes clear that 

the words undoubtedly encompassed CSRTs. United States v. 

Wilson, 290 F.3d 347, 354 (D.C. Cir. 2002); see also Nat’l 

Lead Co. v. United States, 252 U.S. 140, 147 (1920) (citing 

United States v. Bailey, 34 U.S. (9 Pet.) 238, 256 (1835) 

(Story, J.). 

Apparently concerned about what the Supreme Court’s 

Hamdi and Rasul decisions8 portended for aliens detained as 

 8

In Hamdi, the Supreme Court held that the Fifth Amendment 

required the President to afford any U.S. citizen detained as an 

enemy combatant an opportunity to challenge the basis of his 

detention, Hamdi, 542 U.S. at 533 (plurality opinion), and Rasul

held that Guantanamo detainees could invoke the extant habeas 

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enemy combatants at Guantanamo, the Secretary established

CSRTs to permit detainees to challenge the Executive 

Branch’s status determinations. Ashley S. Deeks, The 

Observer Effect: National Security Litigation, Executive 

Policy Changes, and Judicial Deference, 82 FORDHAM L.

REV. 827, 842–43 & n.63 (2013) (citing David A. Martin, 

Judicial Review and the Military Commissions Act: On 

Striking the Right Balance, 101 AM. J. INT’L L. 344, 349 

(2007)). The next year, the Congress in the DTA instructed 

the Secretary to submit to the Congress “a report setting forth 

. . . the procedures of the [CSRTs] . . . established by [him] . . 

. for determining the status of the detainees held at 

Guantanamo Bay.” DTA § 1005(a)(1)(A), 119 Stat. at 2740–

41 (emphasis added). And in section 1005(e)(2), entitled

“Review of Decisions of [CSRTs] of Propriety of Detention,” 

the Congress gave this Court “exclusive jurisdiction to 

determine the validity of any final decision of a [CSRT] that 

an alien is properly detained as an enemy combatant.” Id.

§ 1005(e)(2)(A), 119 Stat. at 2742 (emphases added). The 

language of the DTA, and the MCA’s reference thereto in 

section 7(a), demonstrates that the Executive Branch’s 

practice of using CSRTs to determine whether aliens detained 

at Guantanamo were “properly detained as enemy 

combatants” was well known to the Congress when it enacted 

the MCA. Viewed against this historical backdrop, we are 

convinced that “determined by the United States to have been 

properly detained as an enemy combatant” refers to a 

determination by the executive-branch tribunal the Congress

knew was making that determination. Cf. 10 U.S.C. 

§ 948a(1)(A)(ii) (2006) (provision of MCA defining 

“unlawful enemy combatant” as a person “determined to be 

an unlawful enemy combatant by a [CSRT]”); id. § 948d(c)

 

statute, 28 U.S.C. § 2241, to challenge their detention, Rasul, 542 

U.S. at 483. Both were decided on the same day.

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(2006) (“A finding . . . by a [CSRT] . . . that a person is an 

unlawful enemy combatant is dispositive for purposes of 

jurisdiction for trial by military commission . . . .”). 

Accordingly, we hold that a CSRT determination is a 

“determin[ation] by the United States” under section 

2241(e)(2) and reserve the question of what else those words 

might mean for another day.

C. Constitutional Challenge

Having determined that the statute applies to the 

Appellant, we must now decide whether its application is 

constitutional.9

 We conclude that it is. He first argues that 

 9 Concomitantly with his constitutional arguments, the 

Appellant contends that we should interpret section 7(a) as 

inapplicable to his claims in order to avoid what he believes are 

“serious issues of [the statute’s] constitutionality.” Janko Br. 31. 

“When the validity of an act of the Congress is drawn in question, 

and even if a serious doubt of constitutionality is raised, it is a 

cardinal principle that this Court will first ascertain whether a 

construction of the statute is fairly possible by which the question 

may be avoided.” Crowell v. Benson, 285 U.S. 22, 62 (1932) 

(Hughes, C.J.); see also United States v. Coombs, 37 U.S. (12 Pet.) 

72, 76 (1838) (Story, J.). This principle applies if a statute (1) 

raises “grave and doubtful constitutional questions,” Rust v. 

Sullivan, 500 U.S. 173, 191 (1991) (quotation marks omitted), and 

(2) is “readily susceptible” of two constructions, one constitutional 

and the other unconstitutional, Reno v. Am. Civil Liberties Union, 

521 U.S. 844, 884 (1997) (quotation marks omitted). Assuming 

arguendo that section 2241(e)(2) satisfies the first requirement, it 

does not satisfy the second. “[T]he statute must be genuinely 

susceptible to two constructions after, and not before, its 

complexities are unraveled.” Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 

523 U.S. 224, 238 (1998); see also Clark v. Martinez, 543 U.S. 

371, 385 (2005). As we have shown supra, section 2241(e)(2) 

unambiguously applies to the Appellant’s claims. Because only 

one construction of section 2241(e)(2) is “fairly possible,” United 

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section 2241(e)(2) is unconstitutional because it deprives him 

of a damages remedy for violations of his constitutional 

rights. Apparently recognizing that we rejected this argument 

in Al-Zahrani, 669 F.3d at 319–20, the Appellant once again 

relies on his successful habeas petition to distinguish his case. 

While his successful habeas petition is a factual distinction, it 

makes no constitutional difference. Jurisdiction, in this 

context, is the authority of a court to decide a particular class 

of cases. See Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick, 559 U.S. 154, 

160–61 (2010) (“[T]he term ‘jurisdictional’ properly applies 

only to ‘prescriptions delineating the classes of cases (subjectmatter jurisdiction) and the persons (personal jurisdiction)’ 

implicating [the court’s] authority.” (quoting Kontrick v. 

Ryan, 540 U.S. 443, 455 (2004))). The class of claims to 

which section 2241(e)(2) constitutionally applies plainly 

encompasses the Appellant’s claims—that is, any detentionrelated claims, whether statutory or constitutional, brought by 

an alien detained by the United States and determined to have 

been properly detained as an enemy combatant. Al-Zahrani, 

669 F.3d at 318–19. The writ, although perhaps relevant to 

the merits of his constitutional claims, does not move them 

out of the class to which section 2241(e)(2) constitutionally 

applies. 

Finally, citing to United States v. Klein, 80 U.S. (13 

Wall.) 128 (1871), the Appellant argues that section 

2241(e)(2) unconstitutionally encroaches on the judiciary’s 

Article III authority by mandating a particular result in his 

case. The Supreme Court in Klein struck down a statute 

because, inter alia, it purported to “prescribe rules of decision 

 

States v. Jin Fuey Moy, 241 U.S. 394, 401 (1916) (Holmes, J.), the

constitutional questions raised by section 2241(e)(2) “must be faced 

and answered,” George Moore Ice Cream Co. v. Rose, 289 U.S. 

373, 379 (1933) (Cardozo, J.). 

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to the Judicial Department . . . in cases pending before it” and 

therefore “passed the limit which separates the legislative 

from the judicial power.” Klein, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) at 146, 

147. Although Klein is a bit of a constitutional Sphinx, we

need not play Oedipus today. Klein applies where the 

Congress prescribes the outcome of pending litigation, id. at 

146; see also United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, 448 

U.S. 371, 404 (1980), by means other than amending the 

applicable law, Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, Inc., 514 U.S. 211, 

218 (1995) (quoting Robertson v. Seattle Audubon Soc’y, 503 

U.S. 429, 441 (1992)). Enacted as an amendment to 28 

U.S.C. § 2241(e)(2) more than four years before the Appellant

filed his suit, section 7(a) of the MCA does not fit the bill.10 

It may very well be that to deny the Appellant recovery 

for injuries incurred while in the United States’s custody

based solely on the unreviewed decision of a tribunal the 

Supreme Court has labeled “closed and accusatorial” is rough 

justice. Boumediene, 553 U.S. at 785 (quotation marks 

omitted). But that objection is to the statute’s underlying 

policy and not to our interpretation thereof. The Constitution,

subject to certain limitations, leaves exclusively to the 

Congress questions of fairness, justice, and the soundness of 

policy in the allocation of our jurisdiction. “[T]his court 

simply is not at liberty to displace, or to improve upon, the 

jurisdictional choices of Congress.” Wagner v. FEC, 717 F.3d 

1007, 1016 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (per curiam) (quotation marks 

 10 We decline to decide how Klein might apply to litigation 

pending at the time of the MCA’s enactment because the facts of 

this case do not require it. See Lyng v. Nw. Indian Cemetery 

Protective Ass’n, 485 U.S. 439, 445 (1988) (“A fundamental and 

longstanding principle of judicial restraint requires that courts avoid 

reaching constitutional questions in advance of the necessity of 

deciding them.”).

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omitted). The Congress has communicated its directive in 

unmistakable language and we must obey.

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district 

court is 

Affirmed.

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