Persons suspected of terrorist or criminal activity may be transferred from one State (i.e., country) to another to answer charges against them. The surrender of a fugitive from one State to another is generally referred to as rendition . A distinct form of rendition is extradition , by which one State surrenders a person within its territorial jurisdiction to a requesting State via a formal legal process, typically established by treaty between the countries. However, renditions may be effectuated in the absence of extradition treaties, as well. The terms "irregular rendition" and "extraordinary rendition" have been used to refer to the extrajudicial transfer of a person from one State to another, generally for the purpose of arrest, detention, and/or interrogation by the receiving State (for purposes of this report, the term "rendition" will be used to describe irregular renditions, and not extraditions, unless otherwise specified). Unlike in extradition cases, persons subject to this type of rendition typically have no access to the judicial system of the sending State by which they may challenge their transfer. Sometimes persons are rendered from the territory of the rendering State itself, while other times they are seized by the rendering State in another country and immediately rendered, without ever setting foot in the territory of the rendering State. Sometimes renditions occur with the consent of the State where the fugitive is located; other times, they do not. Besides irregular rendition and extradition, aliens present or attempting to enter the United States may be removed to another State under U.S. immigration laws, if such aliens are either deportable or inadmissible and their removal complies with relevant statutory provisions. Unlike in the case of rendition and extradition, the legal justification for removing an alien from the United States via deportation or denial of entry is not so that he can answer charges against him in the receiving State; rather, it is because the United States possesses the sovereign authority to determine which non-nationals may enter or remain within its borders, and the alien fails to fulfill the legal criteria allowing non-citizens to enter, remain in, or pass in transit through the United States. Although the deportation or exclusion of an alien under immigration laws may have the same practical effect as an irregular rendition (especially if the alien is subject to "expedited removal" under § 235 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, in which case judicial review of a removal order may be very limited), this practice is arguably distinct from the historical understanding of what constitutes a rendition. Nonetheless, the term "extraordinary rendition" has occasionally been used by some commentators to describe the transfer of aliens suspected of terrorist activity to third countries for the purposes of detention and interrogation, even though the transfer was conducted pursuant to immigration procedures. Over the years, several persons have been rendered into the United States by U.S. authorities, often with the cooperation of the States where such persons were seized, to answer criminal charges, including charges related to terrorist activity. The Obama Administration has continued this practice. Besides receiving persons through rendition, the United States has also rendered persons to other countries over the years, via the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and various law enforcement agencies. There have been no widely-reported cases of persons being rendered from the interior of the United States, perhaps due to the constitutional and statutory limitations upon the summary transfer of persons from U.S. territory. There have been cases where non-U.S. citizens were allegedly "rendered" at U.S. ports of entry but had yet to legally enter/be admitted into the United States. However, these "renditions" appear to have been conducted pursuant to immigration removal procedures. Noncitizens arriving at ports of entry have no recognized constitutional rights with regard to their admission into the United States, and federal immigration law provides arriving aliens with fewer procedural protections against their removal than aliens residing in the United States. Instead, it appears that renditions by the U.S. to third countries have involved non-citizens seized outside U.S. territory. The Supreme Court has found that the Constitution protects U.S. citizens abroad from actions taken against them by the federal government, and this would generally appear to limit the summary transfer of such persons to the custody of foreign governments. In contrast, noncitizens who have not entered the United States have historically been recognized as receiving few, if any, constitutional protections (though noncitizens in foreign locations over which the United States exercises significant control, such as Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, may be owed greater protections than other noncitizens abroad). Reportedly, the rendition of terrorist suspects to other countries was authorized by President Ronald Reagan in 1986 and has been part of U.S. counterterrorism efforts at least since the late 1990s. In testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in April 2007, former CIA official Michael F. Scheuer claimed authorship of the CIA's rendition program and stated that it originally began in mid-1995. The initial goals of the rendition program, according to Scheuer, were to ensure the detention of Al Qaeda members posing a threat to U.S. security and to seize any documents in their possession. However, [a]fter 9/11, and under President Bush, rendered al-Qaeda operatives have most often been kept in U.S. custody. The goals of the program remained the same, although ... Mr. Bush's national security team wanted to use U.S. officers to interrogate captured al-Qaeda fighters. In a 2002 written statement to the Joint Committee Inquiry into Terrorist Attacks Against the United States, then-CIA Director George Tenet reported that even prior to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the "CIA (in many cases with the FBI) had rendered 70 terrorists to justice around the world." The New York Times has reported that following the 9/11 attacks, President Bush issued a still-classified directive that broadened the CIA's authority to render terrorist suspects to other States. Although there are some reported estimates that the United States has rendered more than 100 individuals following 9/11, the actual number is not a matter of the public record. Controversy has arisen over the United States allegedly rendering suspected terrorists to States known to practice torture for the purpose of arrest, detention, and/or harsh interrogation. Critics charge that the United States has rendered persons to such States so that they will be subjected to harsh interrogation techniques prohibited in the United States, including torture. In 2009, an Italian court convicted 22 CIA operatives and a U.S. military colonel in absentia for their purported role in the irregular rendition of an Egyptian cleric from Italy to Egypt. The Italian Ministry of Justice apparently has yet to request the United States to extradite these persons so that they may serve their criminal sentences. The Bush Administration did not dispute charges that U.S. authorities rendered persons to foreign States believed to practice torture, but denied rendering persons for the purpose of torture. Answering a question regarding renditions in a March 16, 2005 press conference, President Bush stated that prior to transferring persons to other States, the United States received "promise[s] that they won't be tortured ... This country does not believe in torture." In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2005, acting CIA Director Porter Goss stated that in his belief, "we have more safeguards and more oversight in place [over renditions] than we did before" 9/11. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated that "the United States has not transported anyone, and will not transport anyone, to a country when we believe he will be tortured. Where appropriate, the United States seeks assurances that transferred persons will not be tortured." In January 2009, President Obama issued an Executive Order creating a special task force to review U.S. transfer policies, including the practice of rendition, to ensure compliance with applicable legal requirements. In August, the task force issued recommendations to ensure that U.S. transfer practices comply with applicable standards and do not result in the transfer of persons to face torture. These recommendations include strengthening procedures used to obtain assurances from a country that a person will not face torture if transferred there, including through the establishment of mechanisms to monitor the treatment of transferred persons. Little publicly available information from government sources exists regarding the nature and frequency of U.S. renditions to countries believed to practice torture, or the nature of any assurances obtained from them before rendering persons to them. To what extent U.S. agencies have legal authority to engage in renditions remains unclear. The only provision within the United States Code appearing to expressly permit an agency's participation in a rendition is 10 U.S.C. § 374(b)(1)(D), as amended in 1998, which permits the Department of Defense (DOD), upon request from the head of a federal law enforcement agency, to make DOD personnel available to operate equipment with respect to "a rendition of a suspected terrorist from a foreign country to the United States to stand trial." On the other hand, given that the United States has participated in renditions, there would appear to be legal limits on the practice, especially with regard to torture. This report describes the most relevant legal guidelines limiting the transfer of persons to foreign States where they may face torture, as well as recent legislation seeking to limit the rendition of persons to countries believed to practice torture. The U.N. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) and U.S. domestic implementing legislation impose the primary legal restrictions on the transfer of persons to countries where they would face torture. CAT requires signatory parties to take measures to end torture within territories under their jurisdiction, and it prohibits the transfer of persons to countries where there is a substantial likelihood that they will be tortured.