President Obama will reportedly not act on his own to close the military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, instead submitting to the whims of a Congress committed to keeping the facility open indefinitely.
A source close to the deliberations told Reuters that the administration has ruled out unilateral action on Gitmo due to a lack of popular support and the hyper-politicized season.
“It was just deemed too difficult to get through all of the hurdles that they would need to get through, and the level of support they were likely to receive on it was thought to be too low to generate such controversy, particularly at a sensitive (time) in an election cycle,” the source related to the wire service.
That would mark a departure from the White House’s previous claims that all options are being considered to close the controversial facility before President Obama leaves office —including executive action.
Current law prevents the Pentagon from transferring Guantanamo prisoners to sites in the United States, and the GOP-controlled congress has not warmed to the idea of lifting those restrictions.
Republican lawmakers panned the administration’s proposal earlier this year to lift the roadblocks, and allow a portion of the remaining 80 detainees at Gitmo to be imprisoned stateside.
The transfer bans were included in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, approved by the House last month. The policy bill is being considered by the Senate this week.
Encapsulating GOP opposition to closing the prison camp, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) cut a video statement over the weekend, claiming that closing Guantanamo would “jeopardize our security.”
“These detainees aren’t in Gitmo for parking tickets,” he said. “They’re there because they want to kill Americans and hate everything that we stand for. They’re the worst of the worst.”
Assuming there’s no change of heart or drastic change of leadership on Capitol Hill before next year, then unilateral action is the only option President Obama has left to fulfill one of his original campaign promises in 2008.
Although he has operated within the rules laid out by Congress, the President did previously inform the legislative branch that the transfer bans unconstitutionally infringe on his executive powers.
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) tried to preempt any executive action on Guantanamo last February by threatening to sue the White House
“We are making legal preparations if the president tries to break the law,” Ryan said. “Our law is really clear.”
