Last week, the Obama administration announced that the remaining Chinese Uighurs held at Guantanamo will be accepted by the island nation of Palau. 
 
The announcement has brought Newt Gingrich’s May 15 op-ed “Let’s NOT Meet the Uighurs” back into focus.  You can read it here. 
 
A lot of disinformation and spin is being hurled about regarding the refusal to release these soon to be former detainees into the United States.  including the notion that the decision to not release any of the Uighur detainees into the United States is somehow the result of a Chinese propaganda and counterintelligence campaign.  Some have even questioned the source of the information Newt was using when he wrote the op-ed above.
 
There is no question that the human rights record of China is deplorable.  However, the question at hand is not China’s treatment of the Uighur population at large.  The question is whether the United States should release any of these Uighur detainees into the United States. 
 
Much of information used for the op-ed on these 17 prisoners came from unclassified documents requested through the Freedom of Information Act pertaining to those held at Guantanamo.  All of these documents can be found at the New York Times website: http://projects.nytimes.com/guantanamo 

Specifically, these documents reveal the following facts, which are indisputable:  

• At least 16 of the 17 of the detainees held at the beginning of the Obama administration are alleged to have received training at terrorist camps in Afghanistan. 
• 13 of the 17 are on record as admitting to receiving some sort of training in Afghanistan, including at the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement’s (ETIM) Tora Bora facilities. 
  
• 8 of the 17 are on record as admitting that the training camp was run by Abdul Haq, the head of ETIM.

(Tom Joscelyn at The Long War Journal has been particularly helpful in sorting through all these documents.  For specific quotes from the Uighurs in question, check here.) 

The following facts, which are also indisputable, explain why this information is relevant:  

• ETIM (also called ETIP, for Eastern Turkistan Islamic Party) is classified as a terrorist organization by both the UN and US Treasury Department.
• Abdul Haq – the head of ETIM and the person who runs the training camp in Tora Bora - is designated by both the US Treasury Department and The United Nations as a terrorist.
• Since 2005, with the passage of the Real ID Act, US law (Section 1182 of Title 8, United States Code) PROHIBITS the admission of alien terrorists into USA.  [EDIT: The designation as a terrorist can be defined several ways that apply to the Uighur detainees in question.] 

• Why are they willing to ignore U.S. Law to do so?
• Furthermore, why are some legislators who voted for the Real ID Act now seeking to undermine it?  (See here the list of members who voted to ban alien terrorists from entering the United States.)
• Finally, considering that Haq was designated a terrorist in April 2009 by the Obama administration, is it reasonable to believe that Haq is a terrorist, but that Haq’s students – whom he trained in his terrorist camp in Afghanistan – are safe enough to live in our communities?