I'll play spoiler.

Okay, so the courts look at these cases and say, hey wait, the CSRT determinations about these cats being enemy combatants was wonky, so you need to rethink this.  Rethinking commences and, hey, surprise!: No charges against them, not enemy combatants.  

Everyone is totally cool with that.  

So, Uighurs, you are free to go home.  Safe journey.

Except, well, wait.  Home doesn't want them.  Uighurs: "We would like to come home, please. Can we  come back?"  Home:  "Uh, no.  You were in Afghanistan doing lord knows what.  We'd feel safer if you didn't come back.  we don't want you.  Sorry, tough luck."

Now, this may come as a surprise, but we can't just put 17 Uighurs on a plane and send them to any country we want, even if it is their home country.  That tends to violate sovreignty and all.  Oh, yes, you get no argument from me that it's damned wrong to be plucking people from hither and yon, we certainly don't care about sovreignty and all when we do that, no argument.  But that doesn't work in two directions.  However morally repugnant it is to steal people from their home nations, we can't just send them back.  Those nations may just keep them right at the airport, thank you very much, and f*ck you, United States, for trying to sneak them back in.  You bastards.

Okay, so we can't just pack them on a plane and send them home.  Got it.  Everyone agrees.  

But we can't keep them at Gitmo.  There's no legal way to do so, it's wrong, and they can't be kept there.  Again: everyone agrees.  Cool.

So:  what to do?

Bring them into the United States, let them live here! Put them in a community of other Uighurs!      Boom!  Done!  Problem solved!  Easy peasy lemon squeezy!  Right?
    
Okay, well, hold on just a quick second here.  I have a few questions. 

So, when we let them in, what do they come in as, U.S. citizens?  Well, no, we can't make them U.S. citizens, can we?  That's just sort of crazy.  They haven't been here very long--in fact, not at all--and under immigration law, it's a lengthy process, and we can't really grant them citizenship just because we imprisoned them without eventually charging them.  I mean, it just sounds unreasonable and goofy.  Hi, sorry we detained you because we thought you were involved in training at al Qaeda camps, here, have U.S. citizenship even though you have never lived here.  Don't forget to vote!

Okay, so that doesn't work. 

Well, maybe we can then make them slightly less than citizens, give them green cards and make them lawful permanent residents.  But wait.  Does that make sense?  Given the fact that there are literally hundreds of thousands of people who have applied for visas to come here, and have had to wind their way through the immigration requirements, we are just going to give these guys lawful permanent status?  Hmmm.

Well, wait, what if we do that, and one of them goes off and commits a crime?  Can we deport them? like we can other immigrants?  If so, how?  Wouldn't we have to bring them into the United States consistent with U.S. immigration law, like we do with other aliens?

Well, wait, if we can only bring them in through U.S. immigration law, what do we do about the provisions of the law that would otherwise make them inadmissible?  Do we just ignore those provisions? 

I submit, brothers and sisters, that while everyone can agree that what happened to the Uighurs is, at the very least, regrettable, how we get them out of Gitmo is a tricky business.  The devil, as always in areas of the law, is in the details.  And unless you want to rip apart some of the fabric of immigration law, then this issue takes time.  Unless a country is willing to take them, as one has.

(Also, if the Uighurs want to come to the United States, they can now do what every immigrant can and does do: they can go to the consular office at Palau and file a visa application.  Which would be considered by US Citizenship and Immigration Services and a determination made on the application.  After which, if the Uighurs don't like the determination made by the USCIS regarding their visa or applications to come to the U.S., they may sue under the APA in a U.S. district court.)

This, my friends and neighbors, is why I don't scream and pull hair when I hear that Obama has not released the Uighurs into the U.S., or warns that dealing with the Gitmo detainees like the Uighurs (non-enemy combatants, but nowhere to send them) will be our thorniest issue (it will), or when he takes positions on State Secrets privilege that seems anti-thetical to what he has previously stated, or when he hasd decided to keep (but significantly modify) military commissions.

Because, and all due respect to Prof. Greenwald       and company, these things aren't so easily solved (I have yet to read Glenn Greenwald's plan for how to deal with these folks).