## Facts

- After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Congress authorized the President to use force against those responsible and those who harbored them.
- U.S. forces conducted military operations in Afghanistan; petitioners were captured abroad and transferred to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
- Petitioners were foreign nationals, including British, Australian, and Kuwaiti detainees, held as “enemy combatants.”
- Petitioners alleged indefinite detention without charge, lack of counsel, and lack of a meaningful hearing to test the legality of detention.
- The United States occupied Guantánamo under agreements providing the United States “complete jurisdiction and control,” while Cuba retained “ultimate sovereignty.”
- Petitioners filed habeas corpus petitions in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia; the government moved to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction and failure to state a cognizable claim.

## Issues

1. Whether federal courts have statutory jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 to consider habeas petitions filed by foreign nationals detained at Guantánamo Bay.
2. If jurisdiction exists, whether petitioners stated claims for relief based on the Constitution or international law challenging the legality of their detention.

## Decision

- The district court granted the government’s motion to dismiss.
- The court held it lacked habeas jurisdiction because Guantánamo Bay was not within the sovereign territory of the United States and petitioners were foreign nationals captured and held abroad.
- Relying on Johnson v. Eisentrager, the court treated the absence of U.S. sovereignty as a jurisdictional bar to habeas review for these detainees.
- Because it found no jurisdiction, the court did not grant substantive relief on petitioners’ constitutional or international-law theories and dismissed the petitions.

## Legal Principles

- Statutory habeas jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, as interpreted by the court, did not extend to foreign nationals detained outside U.S. sovereign territory.
- The court treated formal sovereignty, not the United States’ practical control over the detention site, as decisive for the reach of habeas jurisdiction.
- Under the court’s reading of Eisentrager, foreign nationals held outside U.S. sovereign territory could not obtain judicial enforcement of constitutional protections in habeas proceedings.
- International-law sources cited by petitioners were not treated as independently justiciable bases for relief in the absence of habeas jurisdiction.

## Conclusion

The district court dismissed the Guantánamo detainees’ habeas petitions for lack of jurisdiction, reasoning that detention at a site outside U.S. sovereign territory placed foreign nationals beyond the reach of the federal habeas statute and related constitutional and international-law claims.


Rasul v. Bush, 215 F. Supp. 2d 55 (D.D.C. 2002)