President Can Detain Non-Citizens: Court

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The acting U.S. president has the authority to detain non-citizens, according to a new ruling by the Washington, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The ruling could change depending on a review or overturn by the en banc Circuit Court or the Supreme Court, the SCOTUS blog noted.

The case that brought about the ruling involved a cook for the Taliban who claimed he never shot any soldiers.

In response to Ghaleb Nassar Al Bihani’s claim, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon wrote last year, “After all, as Napoleon himself was fond of pointing out, ‘An army marches on its stomach.”

An analysis at TalkLeft, however, questioned the extent of the ruling:

“What if you cater an affair that is being sponsored by a group that is associated with or supports the goals of one of our enemies and there are firearms at the event? Is that enough to authorize your transport halfway across the world to be held for years in indefinite detention at Gitmo? Using a lesser standard of proof than an American would receive, possibly even ‘reasonable belief’, it just might be.”

In this new ruling, the court blamed “the unconventional nature of our enemy.”

“[T]hey are neither soldiers nor mere criminals, claim no national affiliation, and adopt long-term strategies and asymmetric tactics that exploit the rules of open societies without respect or reciprocity,” the court said.

Leon denied Al Bihani’s 2005 petition for habeas corpus, forcing the Yemen citizen to remain in detention as he has since 2002.

The Bush administration first claimed the power to detain non-citizens.