The Surprising Truth About Uyghur Muslim Refugees In America

Over the course of the past two years, the world has seen its share of struggles. Between international health emergencies, economic downturns, and the ill effects of climate change, we are all living in a state of crisis. This is particularly true in China's Xinjiang region, where millions of Uyghur Muslims have been detained, tortured, and mysteriously vanished into thin air (via USA Today).

The allegations regarding what goes on in China's current-day concentration camps are chilling. It is believed that there are over 1 million Uyghur Muslims detained in China's autonomous region (via BBC). Their stories are harrowing and include major human rights violations such as food deprivation, forced assimilation, rape, physical and emotional abuse, mass sterilization, and suspicions of murder, as many enter these camps, never to be heard from again, despite protesters, such as those pictured above.

From the perspective of Western nations, including the United States, such acts are nothing short of genocide. Former President Trump was the first U.S. president to formally sign anti-concentration camp legislation into U.S. law (via Marco Rubio). The bill came to be known as the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020.

Current President Joe Biden echoed the sentiments on Twitter, stating, "China's internment of nearly one million Uighur Muslims is among the worst abuses of human rights in the world today." He too signed legislation condemning forced Uyghur labor (via CNBC). However, recent data reveals that all of this was little more than window dressing.

After hurling accusations at China for committing some of the most gruesome crimes against humanity since slavery and the Holocaust, the United States now admits to permitting precisely zero Uyghur Muslim refugees within its borders (via Time). As a point of reference, the U.S. government dropped a record-breaking 7,423 bombs on Afghanistan in 2019 (via The Guardian). This was done under the banner of liberating Muslims from Taliban rule. Yet, when liberating Muslims becomes a matter of opening borders and providing a safe haven for refugees fleeing genocide, suddenly the matter is covered in bureaucratic red tape.

Experts give a variety of excuses for refusing Muslim Uyghur refugees. Some believe the refugee system lacks accessibility. Others presume it is a matter of fear of retaliation from the Chinese government. To make matters worse, other countries have attempted to safely house Uyghur refugees, only to later return these individuals to the hands of their oppressors. Refugees who left China and then were later returned are now rumored to have mysteriously disappeared, leaving behind them a cloud of panic and uncertainty.

Maya Wang of Human Rights Watch says, "For Uyghurs, there is really nowhere for them to go." In this is a message for all of humanity and a warning for those who are paying attention.