Supreme Court Drops Uighur Detainee Case

Today the Supreme Court said it no longer needs to decide a case involving Uighur Muslims held at Guantanamo Bay since 2002. Although the federal government does not claim these detainees are terrorists or any other kind of "enemy combatants," it had refused to release them, saying they would face persecution in their native China and had nowhere else to go. In 2008 a federal judge in Washington ordered the Uighurs' release within the United States, a ruling that was later overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which said only the executive branch has the authority to admit people into the country. Today the Supreme Court vacated that decision, noting that foreign countries finally have agreed to accept all the remaining Uighur detainees, making the immigration issue moot.

More on the Uighur detainees here.

Comments

[Bill]

Although the federal government does not claim these detainees are terrorists or any other kind of "enemy combatant," it had refused to release them, saying they would face persecution in their native China and had nowhere else to go.

Why don't we just shoot them then?

[Zeb]

Probably for the same reason we don't just shoot you.

[R C Dean]

saying they would face persecution in their native China and had nowhere else to go.

So why weren't they eligible for political asylum?

[Bill]

Because they are terorists.

[affenkopf]

Nice trolling.

[Bill]

Thanks!

[TrickyVic]

Good question.

Do we grant our own prisoners political asylum?

[MikeP]

Today the Supreme Court vacated that decision, noting that foreign countries finally have agreed to accept all the remaining Uighur detainees, making the immigration issue moot.

Great. Now who will do the jobs Mexicans won't do?

[wylie]

Hmong refugees?

[Almanian]

Haitians Jakovasaurs

[T]

There are jobs Mexicans won't do?

[Nick]

A few. Germans do them.

The internet can be a scary place.

[IceTrey]

Only the executive branch has the authority to admit people into the country? Really?

Article 1, section 8, US Constitution:
"To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States"

[R C Dean]

Yup. Congress has the sole authority to pass citizenship laws, and the executive has the sole authority to implement them by, for example, admitting people into the country.

[MikeP]

Indeed, this is a continuation of the common law extant before the Constitution. As Tucker's Blackstone notes...

The common law has affixed such distinct and appropriate ideas to the terms denization, and naturalization, that they can not be confounded together, or mistaken for each other in any legal transaction whatever. They are so absolutely distinct in their natures, that in England the rights they convey, can not both be given by the same power; the king can make denizens, by his grant, or letters patent, but nothing but an act of parliament can make a naturalized subject....

Of course, Tucker goes on to say that since the power of denization is not mentioned in the Constitution, the power resides with the states. But that's the kind of wacky old-fashioned talk that no one believes anymore.

[EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy]

Wise and deliberate judicial restrain or simpering, pusillanimous moral cowardice?

A little of both?

Something in between?

[Spartacus]

This is just more proof that if you ignore a problem long enough, sometimes it really will go away.

[Anomalous]

Uighur please!

[The Libertarian Guy]

Uighurs uobble but they don't fall down.