Guantanamo Uighurs derailed

A U.S. appeals court has reversed a lower court ruling that the 17 Uighur detainees at Guantanamo should be immediately released into the US. Washington Post:

Two of the judges, Karen LeCraft Henderson and A. Raymond Randolph, found that Urbina overstepped his authority in ordering such a remedy. Only the Executive Branch and Congress have the power to allow people to enter the United States, they ruled.

“The question here is not whether petitioners should be released, but where,” Randolph wrote in an 18-page opinion. “Never in the history of habeas corpus has any court thought it had the power to order an alien held overseas brought into the sovereign territory of a nation and released into the general population.”

In an opinion concurring with Randolph and Henderson, judge Judith W. Rogers wrote that Urbina had the right to order the release of the Uighurs into the United States but had acted “prematurely.”

More analysis from SCOTUSblog.

5 thoughts on “Guantanamo Uighurs derailed”

  1. Hey Mike! So whata ya say to the latest beheading in the land of god fearing believers. Think any of them Quantanamo guys was involved?

  2. I’m googling around about recent beheadings (the one in Buffalo is coming up a lot), but seeing nothing that has to do with this post. Can you provide a link?

  3. Fagit Google Mike. Try this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piotr_Sta%C5%84czak
    So I’m thinking, we got this guy in Wusta, named Mike Beneditti whose mission in life is to demonstrate against the “illegal” detainment by the American government (but it not just the USA who’s behind it, Saudi Arabia among others) of known and suspected terrorists, eventually that they get released from Gitmo and then they go on their merry way and BEHEAD innocent civilians.
    What’s wrong with this picture? I’m thinking, this guys got some really screwy priorities. So, Mike, what do you and your kind say to that guys’ family? Or say, one of them Gitmo guys that you want released kills a family of non-believers? Or maybe blows up a school, a bus, or a hotel. What do you say to that Mike?
    And last week the Saudis captured 2 released Gitmo guys who were planning a terrorist bombing. Great work Mike! You’re doing a great job protesting against human rights violations by the US gov.

  4. Thanks for the comment.

    At the moment, I’m doing what I can to prevent torture and illegal detention, and bring the details behind some of these cases to light. Since I have a little influence over my government, and since I’m complicit in what my government does (sometimes only slightly), I think my own government is a good place to start. It’s hard for me, as an individual, to even begin to influence foreign governments, and I don’t have the first idea about influencing foreign militias or terrorist groups.

    The issue of any prisoner returning to a life of crime is a valid one, but not one I’ve really discussed on this blog, and one that’s being discussed plenty of other places on the net among people who have studied the hundreds of detainee cases in more detail than I have. We’ve tried to focus P&C on first-hand experiences and observations.

    This is my first experience working on an issue involving prisoners, and I am thinking a lot about what it means when someone is released and commits a crime (whether that person was innocent of the original charges or not). Many civil libertarians will point out that guilty people are found not guilty all the time, and that people released from prison commit new crimes all the time, and that these things are one of the unfortunate costs of living in a society of laws. This answer doesn’t seem like enough to me. If I come to any conclusions for myself I’ll be sure to post them here.

  5. I see no indication that the beheading was done by recidivists from the camps at Guantánamo. It is only Will’s guess, which is as worthless as mine. Show some evidence in court and we can talk.

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