Legal News

Chinese Men Stuck at Guantanamo: The Strange Case of the Uighurs

By Ashby Jones

Associated Press

Guantanamo detainees, in white, and U.S. military guards walk around Camp 4 detention facility at the U.S. Naval Base, in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)

This just in: A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., has reversed a ruling that would have transferred 17 Guantanamo Bay detainees, Turkic-speaking Muslims from Western China, none of whom are labeled enemy combatants, to the United States. Here’s the AP story; click here for a report from Scotusblog.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina ruled in October that, since they are not enemy combatants, the men must be released to the United States.

But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned that ruling earlier today. Only the executive branch, not the courts, can make decisions about immigration, the appeals court said.

The majority concluded that “it is not within the province of any court, unless expressly authorized by law, to review the determination of the political branch of the government to exclude a given alien. With respect to these seventeen petitioners, the Executive Branch has determined not to allow them to enter the United States.”

The group of men, called Uighurs, have been stuck in a sort of legal limbo for a while. The U.S. military says the men have ties to a militant group that demands separation from China. On the one hand, the United States doesn’t want to release the Uighurs to their home for fear they will be tortured. Beijing has warned other countries not to accept the men, leaving President Obama with a conundrum.

And the D.C. Circuit made it clear that it’s President Obama that needs to act, not the courts. “The government has represented that it is continuing diplomatic attempts to find an appropriate country willing to admit petitioners, and we have no reason to doubt that it is doing so,” Randolph wrote. “Nor do we have the power to require anything more.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on February 18, 2009 (boomark / email).