## Facts

- Foreign nationals captured abroad during hostilities after September 11, 2001 were detained by the U.S. military at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.
- Detainees, proceeding through “next friends,” alleged they were not enemy combatants or enemy aliens and challenged the legality and conditions of their confinement.
- They filed actions in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking writs of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 and related non-habeas claims based on constitutional, statutory, and international law theories.
- The district court dismissed the petitions and related claims for lack of jurisdiction, reasoning the detainees were foreign nationals held outside sovereign U.S. territory.
- The detainees appealed; the D.C. Circuit consolidated the cases.

## Issues

1. Whether 28 U.S.C. § 2241 authorizes federal habeas jurisdiction over petitions filed by foreign nationals detained by the U.S. military at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
2. Whether foreign detainees with no presence in sovereign U.S. territory may pursue non-habeas claims in U.S. courts challenging their detention.

## Decision

- The D.C. Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal for lack of jurisdiction.
- The court held no federal court had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 to grant habeas relief to the Guantánamo detainees.
- The court held the detainees also could not pursue non-habeas claims because access to U.S. courts did not extend to aliens in military custody without presence in sovereign U.S. territory.
- The court resolved the case solely on jurisdictional grounds and did not reach the merits of the detainees’ constitutional, statutory, or international law arguments.

## Legal Principles

- Section 2241(a)’s “within their respective jurisdictions” language was construed to impose a territorial limit tied to U.S. sovereignty, not to the United States’ practical control over a location.
- Guantánamo Bay, though subject to U.S. “complete jurisdiction and control” under a lease, was treated as outside sovereign U.S. territory for § 2241 purposes.
- Under Johnson v. Eisentrager, nonresident aliens held in U.S. military custody outside sovereign U.S. territory generally cannot invoke federal habeas jurisdiction.
- The same Eisentrager-based reasoning was applied to bar non-habeas claims, on the theory that “the privilege of litigation” does not extend to such detainees.

## Conclusion

The D.C. Circuit held that, because Guantánamo Bay was not sovereign U.S. territory and Eisentrager controlled, federal courts lacked statutory habeas jurisdiction under § 2241 and lacked authority to hear related non-habeas challenges brought by foreign nationals detained there, requiring dismissal of all claims.


Al Odah v. United States, 321 F.3d 1134 (D.C. Cir. 2003)