KOROR, Palau – Six former Guantanamo Bay detainees brought to Palau for resettlement have received a warm official welcome, but a plan to deport Bangladeshi workers could halve this Pacific Island nation's already-tiny Muslim community, making integration harder.
The ex-detainees, who are Muslim ethnic Uighurs from a region in China's far west, already face tough challenges to adapt to their new lives in Palau after eight years in the U.S. military camp in Cuba, although they will be provided housing, job training and a full-time interpreter.
President Johnson Toribiong himself welcomed the group when they arrived before dawn Sunday on a secret flight, and he will treat them to a personal tour of the Rock Islands, a diving attraction that is country's top tourist destination, later this week as part of their orientation.
But Toribiong has also announced plans to send home between 200 and 300 Bangladeshi Muslim migrants whose work visas have expired, and last month he banned anyone else from the South Asian country from entering Palau. No timetable has been set for deporting the Bangladeshis.
Palau's Muslim community of about 500 is made up almost completely of Bangladeshi migrant workers. Reducing their number by half could make the Uighurs' transition to island life that much more difficult.
"They need a community of Muslims," Mujahid Hussain, the only Pakistani in Palau, said of the Uighurs.
"They need to sit together and pray together. So if they send home a lot of the Bangladeshis, that's going to be a problem," Hussain, 36, told The Associated Press on Monday.
Announcing the decision to repatriate the Bangladeshis whose visas have expired, Toribiong said last week it has nothing to do with the Uighurs but is a reflection of his administration's commitment to the rule of law.
"We follow the principles of justice and fairness," he said, adding that Bangladeshis with valid work permits have nothing to fear.
The Uighurs (pronounced WEE'-gurs) have been kept out of the public eye and away from media since they arrived.
They hail from one of the most landlocked regions on earth and are making the jump from the prison-like conditions of Guantanamo to another alien environment — the leisurely pace of a palm-fringed tropical island.
Muslims here say they will accept the newcomers.
"All the Muslims, they are our brothers," said Mohammed Main Uddin, 26, as he gathered with about 50 others recently for traditional Friday prayers at the small tin-roofed building sitting atop bamboo stilts that serves as one of just two mosques in Palau.
The Uighurs will be welcome as long as they "follow the Muslim rules" on tolerance and peace, said Uddin, a sweet potato farmer who moved to Palau from Bangladesh four years ago.
The Uighurs brought here were among 22 Chinese Muslims picked up by American forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001 on suspicion of terrorism. They were taken eventually to Guantanamo, where they were held without trial as "enemy combatants."
The Uighurs were approved for release after a federal court ruled they were not enemy combatants, but they spent months in legal limbo as U.S. officials tried to find somewhere to send them. China calls them terrorists and has demanded they be returned. Uighur activists say they would face persecution and possibly death in China.
After protracted negotiations, the six agreed to accept Palau's offer of resettlement. Seven others are still at Guantanamo. One of them did not receive an invitation to resettle in Palau over concerns about his mental health.
Lawyers for the remaining Uighurs at Guantanamo say that among their clients' concerns about going to Palau is the lack of an existing Uighur population.

Palau is an archipelago of about 200 islands 800 miles (1,290 kilometers) east of the Philippines. It has just 20,000 residents, most of them of Micronesian origin with strong clan and family ties. The country is overwhelmingly Christian, with church pews filled on Sunday mornings. The community is close-knit, and, like other outsiders, the Uighurs are likely to find it hard to fit in.

"Some Palauans want (the Uighurs) to come here and some don't," says Johnson Salii, 41, a taxi driver. "Palauans are good people, so they will make friends with them."

Bangladeshis began arriving in Palau about a dozen years ago seeking steady work and a reprieve from the conflict and poverty plaguing their homeland. They mostly work as farmers, laborers and night watchmen, and they are at the bottom rung of Palauan society.

Most of them make the minimum wage for foreigners of $1.50 an hour — a dollar below the rate for Palauans. Like other immigrants in Palau — Palau hosts as many as 6,000 Filipinos — they don't mix much with the locals.

"The tourists come here for the natural beauty," said Harun Rashid, a 40-year-old gas station attendant who moved to Palau 13 years ago. "We are like tourists also, but we work here."

An influx of Bangladeshi immigrants in 2004 and 2005 more than doubled Palau's Muslim community, before the government moratorium on new arrivals.

"Language barriers and fraud among recruiters have resulted in social tensions and problems for the Palauan government, which does not have formal diplomatic ties with Bangladesh," the U.N. refugee agency said in a 2007 report. It did not elaborate, and there have been no reports of fighting between Palauans and migrants.

The United States is paying Palau a little less than $100,000 for each Uighur to cover housing, educating and food costs, Toribiong said.

Toribiong has stressed the Uighurs' resettlement is temporary, saying it could last "a few months or a few years."

Though they won't get Palauan passports, Toribiong says, the Uighurs will be free to leave Palau — if they can find a country that will take them.