Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-09-05265/USCOURTS-caDC-09-05265-0/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 January 7, 2010 Decided May 21, 2010

No. 09-5265

FADI AL MAQALEH, DETAINEE AND AHMAD AL MAQALEH, AS

NEXT FRIEND OF FADI AL MAQALEH,

APPELLEES

v.

ROBERT M. GATES, SECRETARY, UNITED STATES

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, ET AL.,

APPELLANTS

Consolidated with 09-5266, 09-5267

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:06-cv-01669-JDB)

Neal Kumar Katyal, Deputy Solicitor General, U.S.

Department of Justice, argued the cause for appellants. With

him on the briefs were Beth S. Brinkmann, Deputy Assistant

Attorney General, and Douglas N. Letter and Robert M. Loeb,

Attorneys.

David B. Rivkin Jr., Lee A. Casey, and Carlos

Ramos-Mrosovsky were on the brief for amici curiae Special

Forces Association, et al. in support of appellants.

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Tina Monshipour Foster argued the cause for appellees. 

With her on the brief were Barbara J. Olshansky and Ramzi

Kassem.

George Brent Mickum IV was on the brief for amici

curiae Constitutional Law Scholars in support of appellees and

affirmance.

Walter Dellinger and Matthew Shors were on the brief

for amici curiae Non-Governmental Organizations in support of

appellees.

Paul M. Smith and Emily Berman were on the brief for

amicus curiae Retired Military Officers in support of appellees.

Douglas W. Baruch was on the brief for amici curiae

Professors of International Human Rights Law and Related

Subjects in support of appellees.

Before: SENTELLE, Chief Judge, TATEL, Circuit Judge,

and EDWARDS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Chief Judge SENTELLE.

SENTELLE, Chief Judge: Three detainees at Bagram Air

Force Base in Afghanistan petitioned the district court for

habeas corpus relief from their confinement by the United States

military.1

 Appellants (collectively “the United States” or “the

government”) moved to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction based on

§ 7(a) of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, Pub. L. No.

109-366, 120 Stat. 2600 (2006) (“MCA”). The district court

1

A fourth petition consolidated with these three in the district

court was dismissed by the district court for lack of jurisdiction and is

not a part of this interlocutory appeal. 

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agreed with the United States that § 7(a) of the MCA purported

to deprive the court of jurisdiction, but held that this section

could not constitutionally be applied to deprive the court of

jurisdiction under the Supreme Court’s test articulated in

Boumediene v. Bush, 128 S. Ct. 2229 (2008). The court

therefore denied the motion to dismiss but certified the three

habeas cases for interlocutory appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b). 

Pursuant to that certification, the government filed a petition to

this court for interlocutory appeal. We granted the petition and

now consider the jurisdictional question. Upon review, and

applying the Supreme Court decision in Boumediene, we

determine that the district court did not have jurisdiction to

consider the petitions for habeas corpus. We therefore reverse

the order of the district court and order that the petitions be

dismissed.

I. Background

A. The Petitioners

All three petitioners are being held as unlawful enemy

combatants at the Bagram Theater Internment Facility on the

Bagram Airfield Military Base in Afghanistan.2

 Petitioner Fadi

Al-Maqaleh is a Yemeni citizen who alleges he was taken into

custody in 2003. While Al-Maqaleh’s petition asserts “on

information and belief” that he was captured beyond Afghan

borders, a sworn declaration from Colonel James W. Gray,

Commander of Detention Operations, states that Al-Maqaleh

was captured in Zabul, Afghanistan. Redha Al-Najar is a

Tunisian citizen who alleges he was captured in Pakistan in

2002. Amin Al-Bakri is a Yemeni citizen who alleges he was

2

As the distinction generally makes little difference, we will

use “Bagram” to refer to both the Internment Facility and the Military

Base, unless the context indicates otherwise.

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captured in Thailand in 2002. Both Al-Najar and Al-Bakri

allege they were first held in some other unknown location

before being moved to Bagram.

B. The Place of Confinement

Bagram Airfield Military Base is the largest military

facility in Afghanistan occupied by United States and coalition

forces. The United States entered into an “Accommodation

Consignment Agreement for Lands and Facilities at Bagram

Airfield” with the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in 2006,

which “consigns all facilities and land located at Bagram

Airfield . . . owned by [Afghanistan,] or Parwan Province, or

private individuals, or others, for use by the United States and

coalition forces for military purposes.” (Accommodation and

Consignment Agreement for Lands and Facilities at Bagram

Airfield Between the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the

United States of America) (internal capitalization altered). The

Agreement refers to Afghanistan as the “host nation” and the

United States “as the lessee.” The leasehold created by the

agreement is to continue “until the United States or its

successors determine that the premises are no longer required

for its use.” Id. (internal capitalization altered).

Afghanistan remains a theater of active military combat. 

The United States and coalition forces conduct “an ongoing

military campaign against al Qaeda, the Taliban regime, and

their affiliates and supporters in Afghanistan.” These operations

are conducted in part from Bagram Airfield. Bagram has been

subject to repeated attacks from the Taliban and al Qaeda,

including a March 2009 suicide bombing striking the gates of

the facility, and Taliban rocket attacks in June of 2009 resulting

in death and injury to United States service members and other

personnel.

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While the United States provides overall security to

Bagram, numerous other nations have compounds on the base. 

Some of the other nations control access to their respective

compounds. The troops of the other nations are present at

Bagram both as part of the American-led military coalition in

Afghanistan and as members of the International Security

Assistance Force (ISAF) of the North Atlantic Treaty

Organization. The mission of the ISAF is to support the Afghan

government in the maintenance of security in Afghanistan. See

S.C. Res. 1386, U.N. Doc. S/RES/1386 (Dec. 20, 2001); S.C.

Res. 1510, U.N. Doc. S/RES/1510 (Oct. 13, 2003); S.C. Res.

1833, U.N. Doc. S/RES/1833 (Sept. 22, 2008). According to the

United States, as of February 1, 2010, approximately 38,000

non-United States troops were serving in Afghanistan as part of

the ISAF, representing 42 other countries. See International

Security Assistance Force, International Security Assistance

Force and Afghan National Army Strength & Laydown,

http://www.nato.int/isaf/docu/epub/pdf/placemat.pdf. 

C. The Litigation

Appellees in this action, three detainees at Bagram, filed

habeas petitions against the President of the United States and

the Secretary of Defense in the district court. The government

moved to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction, relying principally

upon § 7(a) of the Military Commissions Act of 2006. The

district court consolidated these three cases and a fourth case,

not a part of these proceedings, for argument. After the change

in presidential administrations on January 22, 2009, the court

invited the government to express any change in its position on

the jurisdictional question. The government informed the

district court that it “adheres to its previously articulated

position.”

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The district court, recognizing that the issue of whether

the court had jurisdiction presented a controlling question of law

as to which there were substantial grounds for difference of

opinion, certified the question for interlocutory appeal under 28

U.S.C. § 1292(b). Al Maqaleh v. Gates, 620 F. Supp. 2d 51, 54-

56 (D.D.C. 2009). We accepted the case for interlocutory

review, In re Gates, No. 09-8004, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 17032

(D.C. Cir. July 30, 2009), bringing the jurisdictional issue before

us in the present appeal.

II. Analysis

A. The Legal Framework

While we will discuss specific points of law in more

detail below, for a full understanding, we must first set forth

some of the legal history underlying the controversy over the

availability of the writ of habeas corpus and the constitutional

protections it effectuates to noncitizens of the United States held

beyond the sovereign territory of the United States. The

Supreme Court first addressed this issue in Johnson v.

Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763 (1950). In Eisentrager 21 German

nationals petitioned the district court for writs of habeas corpus. 

The Eisentrager petitioners had been convicted by a military

commission in China of “engaging in, permitting or ordering

continued military activity against the United States after

surrender of Germany and before surrender of Japan.” Id. at

766. Because, during that period, the United States and

Germany were no longer at war, hostile acts against the United

States by German citizens were violations of the law of war. 

Petitioners were captured in China, tried in China, and

repatriated to Germany to serve their sentences in Landsberg

Prison, a facility under the control of the United States as part of

the Allied Powers’ post-war occupation. Id. None ever entered

the United States, nor were any held in the United States. 

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Petitioners sought habeas relief, alleging that their

confinement was in violation of the Constitution and laws of the

United States and the Geneva Convention. Id. at 767; see also

Eisentrager v. Forrestal, 174 F.2d 961 (D.C. Cir. 1949). The

district court held that under Ahrens v. Clark, 335 U.S. 188

(1948), statutory jurisdiction over habeas petitions did not

extend to aliens who were neither confined nor convicted in the

district of the court and whose custodians were beyond

geographic boundaries of the district in which the court sat. The

court dismissed the writ. The petitioners appealed. The Court

of Appeals reversed the district court’s judgment.

The Court of Appeals read Ahrens as having left open

the governing questions of the controversy before it, and held

that since “[t]he right to habeas corpus is an inherent common

law right,” Eisentrager v. Forrestal, 174 F.2d at 965, a

jurisdictional statute could not deprive anyone of whatever

would be the fundamental right to habeas corpus because of the

provision in Article I of the Constitution that the “Federal

Government cannot suspend the privilege, except when, in cases

of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may so require.” 174

F.2d at 965-66 (citing U.S. CONST. Art. I, § 9, cl. 2).

The court reasoned that as “Congress could not

effectuate by omission that which it could not accomplish by

affirmative action,” if the existing jurisdictional act had the

effect of depriving a person entitled to the writ of his substantive

right, the act would be unconstitutional, and therefore the court

must construe it “if possible to avoid that result.” Id. at 966. The

court ruled that the district court that had jurisdiction over the

superior officers of the immediate jailer would have jurisdiction

to hear the petition and grant or deny the writ. Id. at 967. The

Secretary of Defense became the relevant official. He sought

certiorari from the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court granted

review and reversed. By way of introduction to its reasoning,

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the Court noted that “[w]e are cited to no instance where a court,

in this or any other country where the writ is known, has issued

it on behalf of an alien enemy who, at no relevant time and in no

stage of his captivity, has been within its territorial jurisdiction.” 

Eisentrager, 339 U.S. at 768. 

The Court went on to hold that the writ was unavailable

to the enemy aliens beyond the sovereign territory of the United

States. The Court did not end its discussion with the language

concerning sovereignty, however. It noted that trial of the writ

“would hamper the war effort and bring aid and comfort to the

enemy.” Id. at 779. The Court further noted that such trial

would constitute “effective fettering of a field commander,” by

allowing “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.” Id.

The Eisentrager case remained the governing precedent

concerning the jurisdiction of United States courts over habeas

petitions on behalf of aliens held outside the sovereign territory

of the United States until the Court revisited the question in

Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466 (2004). In Rasul the petitioners

were aliens (not from enemy nations) who were captured abroad

during hostilities between the United States and the Taliban. 

The United States transported them to the naval base at

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which the United States holds under a

1903 lease agreement specifying that: “the United States

recognizes the continuance of the ultimate sovereignty of the

Republic of Cuba over the [leased areas].” Id. at 471 (quoting

the lease agreement). Thus, the habeas corpus petitioners were

foreign nationals, not from nations currently in a state of war

with the United States, taken by the United States military, and

transported to locations outside the sovereign territory of the

United States. Relying on Eisentrager, the district court

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dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction. Rasul v. Bush, 215

F. Supp. 2d 55 (D.D.C. 2002). This court affirmed. In Al Odah

v. United States, 321 F.3d 1134 (D.C. Cir. 2003), we called it

“the heart of Eisentrager,” that the writ cannot be “made

available to aliens abroad when basic constitutional protections

are not.” Id. at 1411. The detainees petitioned for certiorari to

the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court granted review.

The district court and the Court of Appeals had accepted

the government’s argument that the relevant facts of Rasul were

not distinguishable from those in Eisentrager in any material

way. The Supreme Court, while not overruling Eisentrager,

explained that the lower courts had misinterpreted the earlier

Supreme Court decision. The Rasul Court stated that the

consolidated cases before it “present the narrow but important

question whether United States courts lack jurisdiction to

consider challenges to the legality of the detention of foreign

nationals captured abroad in connection with hostilities and

incarcerated at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba.” 542

U.S. at 470. The Court explained that the Eisentrager decision

dealt primarily with constitutional jurisdiction, with little to say

as to the “petitioners’ statutory entitlement to habeas review.” 

Id. at 476 (emphasis in the original). More specifically, the

Rasul Court opined that the Eisentrager Court was construing

the effect of Ahrens v. Clark. The posture of the petitions before

the Eisentrager Court was that the Court of Appeals had

concluded that the Ahrens decision created a “statutory gap”

which the Court of Appeals in Eisentrager had seen as an

unconstitutional gap to be filled by reference to “fundamentals.” 

Rasul at 478 (quoting 174 F.2d at 963). The Supreme Court in

Eisentrager agreed that the Ahrens decision controlled as to

statutory jurisdiction but did not agree with the Court of Appeals

that the gap was unconstitutional. The Rasul Court treated the

Ahrens analysis as being essential to the decision in Eisentrager,

and held that Ahrens has been overruled by Braden v. 30th

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Judicial Circuit Court of Kentucky, 410 U.S. 484 (1973), in

which, according to the Rasul Court, the Supreme Court held

“contrary to Ahrens, that the prisoner’s presence within the

territorial jurisdiction of the district court is not ‘an invariable

prerequisite’ to the exercise of district court jurisdiction under

the federal habeas statute.” Id. at 478.

The Rasul Court reasoned that because Braden overruled

the statutory predicate to Eisentrager’s holding, Eisentrager did

not compel a holding that the courts lack jurisdiction to issue the

writ. The Rasul Court then held that the habeas statute did

extend geographically to the base at which the petitioners were

held in Guantanamo. “At common law, courts exercised habeas

jurisdiction over the claims of aliens detained within sovereign

territory of the realm . . . .” Id. at 481. Citing Lord Mansfield

from 1759, the Rasul majority stated that “there was ‘no doubt’

as to the court’s power to issue writs of habeas corpus if the

territory was ‘under the subjection of the Crown.’” Id. at 482

(citing King v. Cowle, 2 Burr. 834, 854-55, 97 Eng. Rep. 587,

598-99 (K.B.)). The Court noted that no one questioned the

district court’s jurisdiction over the custodians of the petitioners

and “therefore [held] that § 2241 confers on the district court

jurisdiction to hear petitioners’ habeas corpus challenges to the

legality of their detention at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.” 

Id. at 484. Finally, the Court concluded that

[w]hat is presently at stake is . . . whether the federal

courts have jurisdiction to determine the legality of the

Executive’s potentially indefinite detention of

individuals who claim to be wholly innocent of

wrongdoing.

542 U.S. at 485. The Court “[a]nswer[ed] that question in the

affirmative, . . . reverse[d] the judgment of the Court of Appeals

and remand[ed] the[] cases for the district court to consider in

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the first instance the merits of the petitioners’ claims.” Id.

Responding to the Rasul decision, Congress passed the

Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-148, 119 Stat.

2739 (2005) (DTA), which President Bush signed into law on

December 30 of that year. Among other things, that Act added

a new provision to the Habeas Act which provided that:

Except as provided in section 1005 of the [DTA]3

, no

court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or

consider – 

(1) an application for a writ of habeas corpus

filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the

Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay,

Cuba; or

(2) any other action 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

(A) is currently in military custody; or

(B) has been determined by the United

States Court of Appeals for the District

of Columbia Circuit . . . to have been

properly detained as an enemy

combatant.

3

The reference to § 1005 as an exception to the jurisdiction

stripping provision refers to subsections of the DTA which provided

for exclusive judicial review of Combatant Status Review Tribunal

determinations and military commission decisions by the United

States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

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In June of 2006, the Supreme Court decided Hamdan v.

Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 (2006), which reversed another decision

of this court. See Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 415 F.3d 33 (D.C. Cir.

2005). In Hamdan, the Supreme Court held that the DTA did

not operate to strip the federal courts of jurisdiction to hear

petitions for writs of habeas corpus on behalf of Guantanamo

detainees that were pending at the time of the DTA’s enactment. 

Therefore, the Supreme Court reversed this court’s dismissal of

the petitions and remanded again for further proceedings.

In October of 2006, in response to the Hamdan decision,

Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA),

Pub. L. No. 109-366, 120 Stat. 2600 (2006). That Act, among

many other things, included a further amendment to the habeas

statute. The new amendment reads:

(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 [section 1005(e)(2) and (e)(3)

of the DTA], 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.

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Congress went on to explicitly state:

The amendment made by subsection (a) shall take effect

on the date of the enactment of this Act, and shall apply

to all cases, without exception, pending on or after the

date of the enactment of this Act which relate to any

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

conditions of detention of an alien detained by the

United States since September 11, 2001.

This clearer statement of congressional intent to strip the courts

of habeas jurisdiction set the stage for an inevitable

determination of the constitutionality of such a stripping in light

of the Suspension Clause, U.S. CONST. Art. I, § 9, cl. 2. That

case came to us in Boumediene v. Bush, 476 F.3d 981 (2007). 

A divided panel held that the statute was constitutional.

In Boumediene, we reasoned that the Rasul decision had

not overruled Eisentrager, and therefore the earlier case

remained precedentially binding upon us. We read Eisentrager

as holding that constitutional habeas rights did not extend to any

aliens who had never been in or brought into the sovereign

territory of the United States. We further reasoned that

Congress’s power to regulate our jurisdiction permitted

Congress to strip the courts of any jurisdiction to hear habeas

claims for aliens who had no constitutional right to habeas relief,

without regard to the Suspension Clause. The Supreme Court in

Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723, 128 S. Ct. 2229 (2008),

reversed our decision.

At the outset, the Supreme Court agreed with our court

that the Military Commissions Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2241(e), did in

fact “deprive[] the federal courts of jurisdiction to entertain the

habeas corpus actions” by the detainees held at Guantanamo

Bay. 128 S. Ct. at 2244. The Court therefore faced the

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constitutional questions

whether petitioners are barred from seeking the writ or

invoking the protections of the Suspension Clause either

because of their status, . . . designation by the Executive

Branch as enemy combatants, or their physical location

. . . at Guantanamo Bay.

Id.

In a thorough and detailed opinion, the Court undertook

its inquiry into the constitutional questions on two levels. First,

it explored the breadth of the Court’s holding in Eisentrager

(still not overruled) in response to the argument by the United

States that constitutional rights protected by the writ of habeas

corpus under the Suspension Clause extended only to territories

over which the United States held de jure sovereignty. Second,

it explored the more general question of extension of

constitutional rights and the concomitant constitutional

restrictions on governmental power exercised extraterritorially

and with respect to noncitizens. In so doing, the Court set forth

a “broad historical narrative of the writ [of habeas corpus] and

its function . . . .” Id. at 2248. While the Court concluded that

the historical record did not provide a clear answer, it accepted

the government’s position that the United States did not exercise

de jure sovereignty over Guantanamo Bay, but took notice of

“the obvious and uncontested fact that the United States, by

virtue of its complete jurisdiction and control over the base,

maintains de facto sovereignty over this territory.” Id. at 2253

(citing Rasul, 542 U.S. at 480). However, the Court further

concluded that “the Government’s premise that de jure

sovereignty is the touchstone of habeas jurisdiction. . . . is

unfounded.” Id.

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The Court reasoned that the adoption of a bright-line rule

based on de jure sovereignty would be inconsistent with a long

line of Supreme Court cases exploring “the Constitution’s

geographic scope.” Id. In explaining this proposition, the Court

explored the series of opinions known as the “Insular Cases,” in

which the Court had “addressed whether the Constitution, by its

own force, applies in any territory that is not a state.” Id. at

2254 (citing 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);

Hawaii v. Mankichi, 190 U.S. 197 (1903); Dorr v. United States,

195 U.S. 138 (1904)). The Boumediene Court recalled the

practical doctrine drawn from the Insular Cases and applied in

such later decisions as Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1 (1957), and

United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259 (1990),

applying the Constitution by its own force in territories which

were destined for apparent statehood, but recognizing a more

practical and selective application of constitutional protection of

rights in territories temporarily held by the United States, or in

acts by the United States government outside United States

territory altogether.

More directly pertinent to the issue before us today, the

Court stated that “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.” 128 S. Ct. at 2258. The Court explained that

such a holding would have been inconsistent with the Insular

Cases and Reid. Seeing no need to create such a conflict

between its holdings, the Court found what it called “a common

thread uniting the Insular Cases, Eisentrager, and Reid: the idea

that questions of extraterritoriality turn on objective factors and

practical concerns, not formalism.” Id.

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Applying the “common thread” to the question of the

jurisdiction of United States courts to consider habeas petitions

from detainees in Guantanamo, the Court concluded that “at

least three factors are relevant in determining the reach of the

Suspension Clause.” Id. at 2259. Those three factors, which we

must apply today in answering the same question as to detainees

at Bagram, are:

(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. Applying these factors to the detainees at Guantanamo, the

Court held that the petitioners had the protection of the

Suspension Clause.

B. Application to the Bagram Petitioners

Our duty, as explained above, is to determine the reach

of the right to habeas corpus and therefore of the Suspension

Clause to the factual context underlying the petitions we

consider in the present appeal. In doing so, we are controlled by

the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution in

Eisentrager as construed and explained in the Court’s more

recent opinion in Boumediene. This is not an easy task, as

illustrated by the thorough and careful opinion of the district

court. While we are properly respectful of the district court’s

careful undertaking of this difficult task, as we review rulings on

motions to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12 de

novo, we reexamine the issue and ultimately reach a different

conclusion.

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At the outset, we note that each of the parties has

asserted both an extreme understanding of the law after

Boumediene and a more nuanced set of arguments upon which

each relies in anticipation of the possible rejection of the brightline arguments. The United States would like us to hold that the

Boumediene analysis has no application beyond territories that

are, like Guantanamo, outside the de jure sovereignty of the

United States but are subject to its de facto sovereignty. As the

government puts it in its reply brief, “[t]he real question before

this Court, therefore, is whether Bagram may be considered

effectively part of the United States in light of the nature and

history of the U.S. presence there.” Reply Br. of the United

States at 7. We disagree. 

Relying upon three independent reasons, the Court in

Boumediene expressly repudiated the argument of the United

States in that case to the effect “that the Eisentrager Court

adopted a formalistic, sovereignty-based test for determining the

reach of the Suspension Clause.” 128 S. Ct. at 2257. Briefly

put, the High Court rejected that argument first on the basis that

the Eisentrager Court’s further analysis beyond recitations

concerning sovereignty would not have been undertaken by the

Court if the sovereignty question were determinative. The

Boumediene Court explicitly did “not accept the idea that . . . the

[sovereignty discussion] from Eisentrager is the only

authoritative language in the opinion and that all the rest is dicta. 

The Court’s further determinations, based on practical

considerations, were integral to Part II of its opinion and came

before the decision announced its holding.” Id. Second, the

Court rejected the Government’s reading of Eisentrager because

the meaning of the word “sovereignty” in the Eisentrager

opinion was not limited to the “narrow technical sense” of the

word and could be read “to connote the degree of control the

military asserted over the facility.” Id. The third reason is the

one we noted above, that is, that the Court concluded that such

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a reading of Eisentrager as proposed by the United States

“would have marked not only a change in, but a complete

repudiation of, the Insular Cases’ (and later Reid’s) functional

approach to questions of extraterritoriality.” Id. at 2258.

True, the second factor articulated in Boumediene for

rejecting the government’s reading of Eisentrager might apply

differently in this case because of differences in the levels of

control over the military facilities. But we must keep in mind

that the second factor is only one of the three reasons offered by

the Boumediene Court for the rejection of “a formalistic,

sovereignty-based test for determining the reach of the

Suspension Clause.” Id. at 2257. Whatever the force of the

second reason offered by the Court in Boumediene, the first and

third reasons make it plain that the Court’s understanding of

Eisentrager, and therefore of the reach of the Suspension

Clause, was based not on a formalistic attachment to

sovereignty, but on a consideration of practical factors as well. 

We note that the very fact that the Boumediene Court set forth

the three-factor test outlined above parallels the Eisentrager

Court’s further reasoning addressed by the Boumediene Court in

its rejection of the bright-line de jure sovereignty argument

before it. That is, had the Boumediene Court intended to limit

its understanding of the reach of the Suspension Clause to

territories over which the United States exercised de facto

sovereignty, it would have had no need to outline the factors to

be considered either generally or in the detail which it in fact

adopted. We therefore reject the proposition that Boumediene

adopted a bright-line test with the effect of substituting de facto

for de jure in the otherwise rejected interpretation of

Eisentrager. 

For similar reasons, we reject the most extreme position

offered by the petitioners. At various points, the petitioners

seem to be arguing that the fact of United States control of

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Bagram under the lease of the military base is sufficient to

trigger the extraterritorial application of the Suspension Clause,

or at least satisfy the second factor of the three set forth in

Boumediene. Again, we reject this extreme understanding. 

Such an interpretation would seem to create the potential for the

extraterritorial extension of the Suspension Clause to

noncitizens held in any United States military facility in the

world, and perhaps to an undeterminable number of other United

States-leased facilities as well. Significantly, the court engaged

in an extended dialog with counsel for the petitioners in which

we repeatedly sought some limiting principle that would

distinguish Bagram from any other military installation. 

Counsel was able to produce no such distinction. See Transcript

of Oral Argument, pp. 30-47. Again, such an extended

application is not a tenable interpretation of Boumediene. If it

were the Supreme Court’s intention to declare such a sweeping

application, it would surely have said so. Just as we reject the

extreme argument of the United States that would render most

of the decision in Boumediene dicta, we reject the first line of

argument offered by petitioners. Having rejected the bright-line

arguments of both parties, we must proceed to their more

nuanced arguments, and reach a conclusion based on the

application of the Supreme Court’s enumerated factors to the

case before us.

The first of the enumerated factors is “the citizenship and

status of the detainee and the adequacy of the process through

which that status determination was made.” Citizenship is, of

course, an important factor in determining the constitutional

rights of persons before the court. It is well established that

there are “constitutional decisions of [the Supreme] Court

expressly according differing protection to aliens than to

citizens.” United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. at 273. 

However, clearly the alien citizenship of the petitioners in this

case does not weigh against their claim to protection of the right

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of habeas corpus under the Suspension Clause. So far as

citizenship is concerned, they differ in no material respect from

the petitioners at Guantanamo who prevailed in Boumediene. 

As to status, the petitioners before us are held as enemy aliens. 

But so were the Boumediene petitioners. While the Eisentrager

petitioners were in a weaker position by having the status of war

criminals, that is immaterial to the question before us. This

question is governed by Boumediene and the status of the

petitioners before us again is the same as the Guantanamo

detainees, so this factor supports their argument for the

extension of the availability of the writ. 

So far as the adequacy of the process through which that

status determination was made, the petitioners are in a stronger

position for the availability of the writ than were either the

Eisentrager or Boumediene petitioners. As the Supreme Court

noted, the Boumediene petitioners were in a very different

posture than those in Eisentrager in that “there ha[d] been no

trial by military commission for violations of the laws of war.” 

128 S. Ct. at 2259. Unlike the Boumediene petitioners or those

before us, “[t]he Eisentrager petitioners were charged by a bill

of particulars that made detailed factual allegations against

them.” Id. at 2260. The Eisentrager detainees were “entitled to

representation by counsel, allowed to introduce evidence on

their own behalf, and permitted to cross-examine the

prosecution’s witnesses” in an adversarial proceeding. Id. The

status of the Boumediene petitioners was determined by

Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) affording far less

protection. Under the CSRT proceeding, the detainee, rather

than being represented by an attorney, was advised by a

“Personal Representative” who was “not the detainee’s lawyer

or even his ‘advocate.’” Id. The CSRT proceeding was less

protective than the military tribunal procedures in Eisentrager

in other particulars as well, and the Supreme Court clearly stated

that “[t]he difference is not trivial.” Id. at 2259. 

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The status of the Bagram detainees is determined not by

a Combatant Status Review Tribunal but by an “Unlawful

Enemy Combatant Review Board” (UECRB). As the district

court correctly noted, proceedings before the UECRB afford

even less protection to the rights of detainees in the

determination of status than was the case with the CSRT.4

Therefore, as the district court noted, “while the important

adequacy of process factor strongly supported the extension of

the Suspension Clause and habeas rights in Boumediene, it even

more strongly favors petitioners here.” Al Maqaleh, 604 F.

Supp. 2d at 227. Therefore, examining only the first of the

Supreme Court’s three enumerated factors, petitioners have

made a strong argument that the right to habeas relief and the

Suspension Clause apply in Bagram as in Guantanamo. 

However, we do not stop with the first factor.

The second factor, “the nature of the sites where

apprehension and then detention took place,” weighs heavily in

favor of the United States. Like all petitioners in both

Eisentrager and Boumediene, the petitioners here were

apprehended abroad. While this in itself would appear to weigh

against the extension of the writ, it obviously would not be

sufficient, otherwise Boumediene would not have been decided

as it was. However, the nature of the place where the detention

takes place weighs more strongly in favor of the position argued

by the United States and against the extension of habeas

jurisdiction than was the case in either Boumediene or

Eisentrager. In the first place, while de facto sovereignty is not

4

The Government argues that in our analysis of this first

factor, we should consider new procedures that it has put into place at

Bagram in the past few months for evaluating the continued detention

of individuals. But we will decide this case based on the procedures

that have been in place, not on the new procedures that are being

implemented only now when the case is before the Court of Appeals.

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determinative, for the reasons discussed above, the very fact that

it was the subject of much discussion in Boumediene makes it

obvious that it is not without relevance. As the Supreme Court

set forth, Guantanamo Bay is “a territory that, while technically

not part of the United States, is under the complete and total

control of our Government.” 128 S. Ct. at 2262. 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. While it is

certainly realistic to assert that the United States has de facto

sovereignty over Guantanamo, the same simply is not true with

respect to Bagram. Though the site of detention analysis weighs

in favor of the United States and against the petitioners, it is not

determinative.

But we hold that the third factor, that is “the practical

obstacles inherent in resolving the prisoner’s entitlement to the

writ,” particularly when considered along with the second factor,

weighs overwhelmingly in favor of the position of the United

States. It is undisputed that Bagram, indeed the entire nation of

Afghanistan, remains a theater of war. Not only does this

suggest that the detention at Bagram is more like the detention

at Landsberg than Guantanamo, the position of the United States

is even stronger in this case than it was in Eisentrager. As the

Supreme Court recognized in Boumediene, even though the

active hostilities in the European theater had “c[o]me to an end,”

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at the time of the Eisentrager decision, many of the problems of

a theater of war remained: 

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 ‘were-wolves.’”

128 S. Ct. at 2261 (quoting Eisentrager, 339 U.S. at 784).

In ruling for the extension of the writ to Guantanamo, the

Supreme Court expressly noted that “[s]imilar threats are not

apparent here.” 128 S. Ct. at 2261. In the case before us,

similar, if not greater, threats are indeed apparent. The United

States asserts, and petitioners cannot credibly dispute, that all of

the attributes of a facility exposed to the vagaries of war are

present in Bagram. The Supreme Court expressly stated in

Boumediene that at Guantanamo, “[w]hile obligated to abide by

the terms of the lease, the United States is, for all practical

purposes, answerable to no other sovereign for its acts on the

base. Were that not the case, or if the detention facility were

located in an active theater of war, arguments that issuing the

writ would be ‘impractical or anomalous’ would have more

weight.” Id. at 2261-62 (emphasis added). Indeed, the Supreme

Court supported this proposition with reference to the separate

opinion of Justice Harlan in Reid, where the Justice expressed

his doubts that “every provision of the Constitution must always

be deemed automatically applicable to United States citizens in

every part of the world.” See 354 U.S. at 74 (Harlan, J.,

concurring in the result). We therefore conclude that under both

Eisentrager and Boumediene, the writ does not extend to the

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Bagram confinement in an active theater of war in a territory

under neither the de facto nor de jure sovereignty of the United

States and within the territory of another de jure sovereign. 

We are supported in this conclusion by the rationale of

Eisentrager, which was not only not overruled, but reinforced

by the language and reasoning just referenced from Boumediene. 

As we referenced in the background discussion of this opinion,

we set forth more fully now concerns expressed by the Supreme

Court in reaching its decision in Eisentrager:

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. Those factors are more relevant

to the situation at Bagram than they were at Landsberg. While

it is true, as the Supreme Court noted in Boumediene, that the

United States forces in Germany in 1950 faced the possibility of

unrest and guerilla warfare, operations in the European theater

had ended with the surrender of Germany and Italy years earlier. 

Bagram remains in a theater of war. We cannot, consistent with

Eisentrager as elucidated by Boumediene, hold that the right to

the writ of habeas corpus and the constitutional protections of

the Suspension Clause extend to Bagram detention facility in

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Afghanistan, and we therefore must reverse the decision of the

district court denying the motion of the United States to dismiss

the petitions.

We do not ignore the arguments of the detainees that the

United States chose the place of detention and might be able “to

evade judicial review of Executive detention decisions by

transferring detainees into active conflict zones, thereby granting

the Executive the power to switch the Constitution on or off at

will.” Brief of Appellees at 34 (quotation marks and citation

omitted). However, that is not what happened here. Indeed,

without dismissing the legitimacy or sincerity of appellees’

concerns, we doubt that this fact goes to either the second or

third of the Supreme Court’s enumerated factors. We need

make no determination on the importance of this possibility,

given that it remains only a possibility; its resolution can await

a case in which the claim is a reality rather than a speculation. 

In so stating, we note that the Supreme Court did not dictate that

the three enumerated factors are exhaustive. It only told us that

“at least three factors” are relevant. Boumediene, 128 S. Ct. at

2259 (emphasis added). Perhaps such manipulation by the

Executive might constitute an additional factor in some case in

which it is in fact present. However, the notion that the United

States deliberately confined the detainees in the theater of war

rather than at, for example, Guantanamo, is not only

unsupported by the evidence, it is not supported by reason. To

have made such a deliberate decision to “turn off the

Constitution” would have required the military commanders or

other Executive officials making the situs determination to

anticipate the complex litigation history set forth above and

predict the Boumediene decision long before it came down. 

Also supportive of our decision that the third factor

weighs heavily in favor of the United States, as the district court

recognized, is the fact that the detention is within the sovereign

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territory of another nation, which itself creates practical

difficulties. Indeed, it was on this factor that the district court

relied in dismissing the fourth petition, which was filed by an

Afghan citizen detainee. Al Maqaleh, 604 F. Supp. 2d at 229-

30, 235. While that factor certainly weighed more heavily with

respect to an Afghan citizen, it is not without force with respect

to detainees who are alien to both the United States and

Afghanistan. The United States holds the detainees pursuant to

a cooperative arrangement with Afghanistan on territory as to

which Afghanistan is sovereign. While we cannot say that

extending our constitutional protections to the detainees would

be in any way disruptive of that relationship, neither can we say

with certainty what the reaction of the Afghan government

would be. 

In sum, taken together, the second and especially the

third factors compel us to hold that the petitions should have

been dismissed.

CONCLUSION

For the reasons set forth above, we hold that the

jurisdiction of the courts to afford the right to habeas relief and

the protection of the Suspension Clause does not extend to aliens

held in Executive detention in the Bagram detention facility in

the Afghan theater of war. We therefore reverse the order of the

district court denying the motion for dismissal of the United

States and order that the petitions be dismissed for lack of

jurisdiction.

So ordered.

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