Four Uighur detainees from Guantanamo Bay who were cleared for release will not be moving to America. Although a large Uighur community in Northern Virginia has offered to accept the former detainees, elected officials from Virginia refused to allow the Uighurs to resettle in Northern Virginia.

The Premier in Bermuda, a British protectorate, agreed to accept the Uighurs without consulting the Foreign Ministry in the U.K. This unilateral move led to large protests across the island calling for his resignation that coincided with the arrival of the Uighurs. 13 other Uighurs have been moved to Palau. None of the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay who have been cleared of the charges against them has been released into the United States.

I doubt that any of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay will ever be released into the U.S. The reason for this is fear. After eight years of scaremongering by the Bush Administration, Americans have become convinced that releasing any of these innocent men into America—or placing any of the actual threats into a maximum security facility—would undermine our national security. The theory is that even if some of these individuals did not pose a threat to the U.S. when we arrested them, they do now because of their extended stays at Gitmo. Since they are too dangerous for us to take in, we are asking/prodding/bullying our allies into accepting people who are too dangerous to be part of our society.

Pushing our allies to accept all of the individuals at Guantanamo Bay without leading by example and resettling some of them in the US is a strategy that is bound to fail and, ironically, undermine our national security. The inability of the Bush Administration to conduct a successful unilateral foreign policy demonstrated that the U.S. needs allies in order to conduct a foreign policy that promotes human rights and our national interest. By refusing to take in any of the detainees in Gitmo, we look hypocritical in the eyes of our allies, weaken our moral legitimacy, and decrease our “soft power.” Refusing to send Uighurs to China where they might be tortured is noble, but we’re unwilling to take the next step and actually stand up for what we believe in by allowing those who were wrongly held by our government a shot at a better life here in America. If we don’t want them to be tortured, why don’t we resettle them somewhere that actually wants them and where we can ensure that they won’t be tortured, like Northern Virginia?

The fact that no one in Congress is willing to step forward and offer to relocate some of the detainees who do not pose a threat to our national security in their districts and states shows a lack of moral courage. Such a move might put their chances of reelection in danger, but at some point Congress needs to show some leadership and help take ownership of the solution to a problem that we created. We cannot be considered a good ally if we ask our friends to clean up the mess we made at Gitmo by accepting all of the detainees that we held in the face of strident opposition from those same allies.

The Obama Administration needs to work with Congress to achieve the President’s pledge to shut down Guantanamo within a year. A solution that shirks any responsibility for the detainees beyond flying them to their new homes overseas is cowardly and counterproductive. The President has said that he is willing to tell the American people hard truths. It is time that he explained why the U.S. must make a good faith effort to relocate some of the people formerly held in Gitmo to the United States. If Obama wants to bring change, he needs to work on replacing an air of fear with one of understanding, commitment and, yes, a little bit of sacrifice at home.