Legalities
Life, Politics and the Law From ABC News Correspondent Jan Crawford Greenburg
Jan Crawford Greenburg is a correspondent for ABC News' bureau in Washington DC. She covers politics, the Supreme Court and provides legal analysis for ABC News. She is a graduate of the University of Chicago's law school and is a member of the New York bar.
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Detainees to be freed in the U.S.?
July 03, 2008 12:37 PM
As high-level discussions continue over the future of Guantanamo as a prison for al-Qaeda suspects, administration officials also are focusing on how to handle detainees who prevail in federal court and are ordered released from prison.
The administration fully expects the federal courts--which now must hear the prisoners' claims in the wake of last month's Supreme Court ruling--to order some of those GTMO detainees freed, senior officials say.
Lawyers for the detainees say that's because many should never have been imprisoned. The administration says that's not true--and that the problem stems from how the soldiers and CIA officers collected evidence on the battlefield and wrote it up, never expecting it to be used in litigation in a federal court.
Either way, both sides expect some detainees to be set free. And that raises a huge question: What to do with them?
The issue came up in today's White House briefing. Here's Dana Perino:
"One of the real implications of this decision that the Supreme Court made is that these detainees, if and when they challenge their detention in court, could be released into the United States."
She continued: "That's exactly what that decision said. That's one of the real implications. Because if they challenge their detention in DC district court, which is what the Supreme Court said they should do, and they're found to be held, that there's not enough evidence to hold them, they can then be released, free."
"That's one of the reasons that we have all of these very complicated questions that are unanswered," she said. "And that's one of them, the immigration piece of it, and what do you do?"
The district courts here are scrambling with how to handle all these detainee petitions (250 or so now filed). The Justice Department has asked for 30 more lawyers from US attorneys offices across the country to volunteer to come here and help out. Some 20 attorneys in the Justice Department have already been reassigned to these cases.
It's all because the Court said these detainees had a constitutional right to challenge their detentions in federal courts. And now, of course, they are.
If the courts find there's not enough evidence to hold them, they'll order their release. But to where? It's potentially a huge problem because the government says it can't find countries to accept the detainees--and under international law, it can't send them to countries where they'd be subjected to torture.
Here's the immigration issue: Just because the detainees are ordered released doesn't mean they have a right to legally be here in this country. But the government can't hold indefinitely aliens who don't have a lawful basis for being here. That's why Congress likely will have to get involved on the immigration issue and decide how it may be able to carve out something for these detainees who are in this no-man's land.
This is a separate issue from where to put detainees the courts say are properly held. That's also a potential issue for Congress if President Bush decides--as most officials and both presidential candidates agree--there's no point to GTMO anymore.
July 3, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (24)
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Release the terrorists in GITMO and put BUSH,CHENEY,RICE,DUMBSFELD,GONZALES AND GATES in their place..These are the worst world terrosists.
Posted by: Brutice | Jul 5, 2008 2:24:10 PM
Don't give GITMO to Bush or Obama! They neither one will know what to do with the detainees. Nor will McCain for that matter. They need to ssend those terrorist back where they came from! So what if they are tortured, we didn't torture them. Let "their" people do what they want with them! They are terrorist for God's sake!!!oh but the United States has to do the "right" thing. Well, doing the right thing has gotten us into a war where we do not belong..doing the right thing has gotten thousands of our soldiers killed and wounded and scarred for life! but let's do the right thing for these terrorist.BS! Let's do the right thing and get out of this war! If Hillary was our next President she would know what to do...but Obama doesn't have the experience to know what to do with GITMO
Posted by: Sharon | Jul 7, 2008 8:37:41 AM
GITMO prisoners should not be released into the United States OR be allowed to go back to their country, or region for that matter, of citizenship. They will cause numerous problems here, much like the illegal immigrant gangs only much worse, and we imprisoned them for a reason. If we put them back they will just be with the same people we pulled them from. These people do not mind being killed so they probably do not mined being prisoned either. For this reason they do not learn the same lessons as citizens of the U.S. or another country when they are thrown in jail. I say leave GITMO up and running. We need a place to put the scum-of-the-earth terrorists that we pull from their holes.
Posted by: Chris | Jul 21, 2008 11:50:13 AM
The liberals are the ones who know how to run this country. During The Clinton years, we had a good economy,no war,we had the respect of the rest of the world and our government wasn't stacked with every looser who voted for the idiot in the white house. It is time to throw out all the criminals who are supposed to be running things.
Posted by: j | Aug 4, 2008 7:18:33 PM
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