Sanity Prevails in Uighurs Case

The Supreme Court has refused to consider an appeal by the Uighurs -- five of the Chinese Muslims held at Gitmo who were determined by the military not to be enemy combatants despite having trained in al-Qaeda camps. The men were claiming a right to be resettled in the United States. A federal district judge in Washington had ruled in their favor, but his decision was reversed by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in a well-reasoned decision written by Judge Raymond Randolph (which I previously discussed, here). The Supreme Court's refusal to hear the case lets stand Judge Randolph's decision.

This is certainly the right result. The framers did not intend a national-security role for the courts -- they believed the most important decisions made by the body politic, those that affect the security of the nation, ought to be made by public officials who are politically accountable to the people whose lives are at stake. In its wisdom, Congress -- prodded by the Supreme Court -- has given the courts power to review the military's wartime determination that captured detainees are properly held as "enemy combatants." That grant of authority must be construed narrowly: The power to decide who is a combatant does not imply the power to decide what happens to detainees found not to be combatants.

It is up to Congress to determine who qualifies for admission into the U.S. Congress has wisely barred admission to aliens who have either been members of terrorist organizations or trained in terrorist camps. That means our government ends up holding some aliens who have (strangely) been found not to be combatants but who do not qualify for entry into the U.S.

With respect for detainees in that limbo, it is up to the executive branch -- through the conduct of diplomacy -- to repatriate alien detainees (or find countries willing to take them if, like the Uighurs, they can't be returned to their native country due to treaty restrictions). There is no reason to believe the executive branch is not trying in good faith to find countries willing to take the detainees -- as it is, we are transferring too many dangerous detainees who should remain in custody, and new homes in Bermuda, Palau, and elsewhere were in fact found for a number of the Uighurs.

Under these circumstances, the courts should be content to do only what Congress has tasked them to do -- viz., review the validity of the aliens' "enemy combatant" status. The delicate political work of relocating the prisoners ought to be left to the political branches.