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Would You Let Former Guantanamo Detainees Resettle In Your Town?
The university town of Amherst, Massachusetts has voted to consider a resolution to welcome to their town Guantanamo detainees who have been cleared for release, meaning the U.S. government has found no evidence that they ever committed a crime.
Called “Resolution to Assist in the Safe Resettlement of Cleared Guantanamo Detainees,” the resolution speaks to the monumental resettlement problem facing the U.S. government. Many of the detainees still imprisoned at Guantanamo have been officially “cleared for release” for years, yet they have nowhere to go since they would likely be imprisoned and tortured if they were returned to their home countries. This is the case, for instance, with the Chinese Uighurs, an ethnic minority that has been openly persecuted by the Chinese goverment.
According to one of the selectmen supporting the resolution, “The United States has a long history of being a place of refuge and asylum for persecuted people. There’s nothing new about this. This is the tradition of the United States.”
I agree that many of the Guantanamo detainees have been unjustly persecuted. By the Pentagon’s own estimation, only 5 percent of Guantanamo detainees were engaged in any form of combat when they were picked up. The vast majority were turned in for the bounties promised in flyers that our government airdropped throughout Afghanistan and Pakistan, offering people who turned in terrorists “enough money to take care of your family, your village, your tribe for the rest of your life.”
Still, I’m not so naive as to believe every Guantanamo detainee cleared for release poses no threat. These are mainly very poor men who have lost their families and their homelands because of the American government; some of them certainly feel they have nothing left to lose. That said, I personally feel responsible for assuming whatever risk there may be in helping to resettle cleared detainees on American soil, since we are fully responsible for the wreck of their lives. Also, the chances that a former detainee will be recruited for extremist activities are much higher in their home countries than if they were surrounded by Americans expressing goodwill.
In any case, this is almost certainly a moot point–if the government (in response to rather hysterical constituents) won’t even allow Guantanamo detainees to be housed in maximum security prisons here in the U.S., it’s pretty unthinkable that any former detainees, even those cleared for release, will be resettling on American soil.
Still, it’s an important question to consider, if only hypothetically. How would you feel if you lived in a town that passed a resolution similar to Amherst’s?
Photo: AP
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0 Comments
Knitty commented on Oct 22 09 at 7:32 pmI would welcome them to live in my town, as they are innocent people. People are, you know, innocent until PROVEN guilty — not until rounded up and subjected to an international witchhunt.
Mistress_Scorpio commented on Oct 22 09 at 8:17 pmI’d welcome them in my town as well. Hopefully these people can get some semblance of a life back.
Dad commented on Oct 23 09 at 9:33 amSure, as long as you continue to persecute them by treating them as a threat, you are likely to increase their feeling of having nothing to lose, and therefore turn them into a threat.
Stop buying into the fear mongering. There are likely people already living in your community who feel they have nothing to lose and are a threat to your safety.
Knitty commented on Oct 23 09 at 10:25 amI’m actually stunned that Babble cleared this one, it’s so ugly and offensive on so many levels.
hannahtm commented on Oct 23 09 at 2:01 pmKnitty, I’m surprised that you found this offensive, since you seem to agree with my premise in your previous comment (that Americans should welcome Guantanamo detainees into their towns). I’ve spent years researching the unconstitutional treatment of Guantanamo detainees and advocating for their rights (as I did in this post), so I’d be very interested to know what you found “ugly and offensive.” I really do not want to be misunderstood on this point. Thanks for any light you can shed!
Bunny commented on Oct 23 09 at 2:06 pmI think what she meant was that it was “ugly and offensive” to even suggest that these detainees shouldn’t be resettled in America, or that they pose any threat. They’re being released because they were detained for no reason in the first place. The only reason to be fearful of them is because they’re foreign and possibly nonwhite and may even be Muslims, oooh scary – and all of these reasons really are quite offensive.
Knitty commented on Oct 23 09 at 3:12 pmExactly, Bunny.
hannahtm commented on Oct 23 09 at 3:55 pmAh. Thanks for the clarification. I agree completely, which is why it’s so sad that nearly three-quarters of Americans are opposed to having former detainees housed in their state, even if they’re in prison.
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