Another Gitmo success story:

Ahktar Qassim Basit says he is not angry about the four years he spent as an American prisoner at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, before his captors mumbled a brief apology and flew him to this drab Balkan capital to begin a new life as a refugee.

It is this new life in Albania, Mr. Basit and other former Guantánamo detainees say, that is driving them to desperation.

Why? Well, because they live in “a squalid government refugee center on the grubby outskirts of Tirana, guarded by armed policemen.” They have been told that they will “need to get work to move out of the center,” but “that they must learn the Albanian language to get work permits.” They have to live on $67 per month (and free meals). They spend this $67 on telephone conversations with their families. Sadly, “some of the men have already lost hope of ever seeing their wives and children again.”

More:

Mr. Basit and four other men here, who spent time at a hamlet in Afghanistan run by Uighur separatists, are still considered terrorist suspects by China’s Communist government. Only Albania’s pro-American government would give them asylum, but Albanian officials have since told the men they cannot afford to give them much else.

Things could be worse, the former prisoners note. At least 15 of the 17 Uighurs who remain at Guantánamo have also been cleared for release, but not even Albania will accept them — and neither will the United States. Instead, American diplomats say they have asked nearly 100 countries to provide asylum to the detainees, only to find that Chinese officials have warned some of the same countries not to accept them.

The State Department’s legal adviser, John B. Bellinger III, said in an interview that “the United States has made extensive and high-level efforts over a period of four years to try to resettle the Uighurs in countries around the world.” Its lack of success “has not been for lack of trying.”

Lets see: they were arrested, after which they were imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay, until they were finally released (after four years) because they pose(d) no threat to the US. Let me think; what could the US do for these men? It seems to me that the US owes them something after having kept them prisoner for four long years. But what is the US to do?

How about, dare I say it, giving asylum to these men? The US captured them; the US kept them locked up in Gitmo; they are the responsibility of the US. The US should not try to convince other countries to accept them, the US itself should accept them.

The problem:

American officials said they considered that idea. But two officials said it was shot down in 2005 by the Department of Homeland Security, which argued that the men would be barred from entering the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act because they had been linked to a terrorist group or received “military-type training” from a group that engaged in terrorism.

Change the law. Make an exception. Whatever. I am not one who will defend terrorists, but this is unacceptable as well.