Posted by
Always To The Right on Tuesday, October 07, 2008 6:29:50 PM
A federal judge has ordered the release
of 17 Chinese Uighers detained at Guantanamo Bay, and specifically into
the US. Judge Ricardo Urbina demanded that the federal government
produce them in his courtroom by Friday, and refused to stay his order
for an appeal. He also warned immigration officials not to do their
jobs by detaining these suspected terrorists:
A federal judge today ordered that 17 Chinese Muslims
held at the Guantanamo Bay military prison be released into the United
States by Friday, agreeing with the detainees’ attorneys that the
Constitution bars holding the men indefinitely without cause. …
Justice Department lawyer John O’Quinn asked Urbina to stay the
order for a week, giving the government time to evaluate its options
and file an appeal. Urbina rejected that request and ordered the
Uighurs to appear in his courtroom for a hearing on Friday. He said he
would then release them into the custody of 17 Uighur families living
in the Washington area.
O’Quinn said the legal ramifications from the order are complex and
that he wants time to consult with officials from the Department of
Homeland Security. Under existing U.S. law, immigration authorities may
be forced to take the Uighurs into custody shortly after they arrive in
the United States, O’Quinn said. The Justice Department alleges they
have ties to a group that has been designated a terrorist organization
by the government.
Urbina chastised O’Quinn for suggesting that the government might take the Uighurs into custody for a second time.
The seventeen men were captured in Pakistan after fleeing
Afghanistan during the 2001-2 campaign to topple the Taliban and fight
al-Qaeda. The judge said that the government had unreliable evidence
to show them as a threat to the United States. If living in terrorist
camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan doesn’t provide prima facie evidence
of just that kind of threat, it’s difficult to know what Urbina needs.
Now, unless the 4th District overrules Urbina in the next 72 hours,
we will knowingly transport 17 Uighers who lived in terrorist training
camps to our nation’s capital, and release them on their own recognizance.
Why? Because we can’t send them to China, who might mistreat them.
Every other country in the world has more sense than to agree to take
these Uigher separatists, who like many of their compatriots, have
allied themselves with al-Qaeda. Every other country, that is, except
the US, or at least one of its judges.
This is what we can expect when the judiciary decides to usurp the
role of the executive branch in waging war. Urbina ruled that the
detention of the Uighers violates the Constitution with their
indefinite detention, but that doesn’t apply to unlawful combatants of
any war, and never has. We would be within our rights to hold
prisoners of war until an end to hostilities, and Urbina has now given
these terrorists a better deal than POWs get.