Obama vows to bring Guantanamo population under 100

His one-year deadline to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba has long passed, obviously, but President Obama has ramped up his search for a site for “Guantanamo North”.

In the letter, attorneys general from Colorado, Kansas and SC said that bringing detainees to their areas “will create imminent danger” and make “targets” out of the communities where they are placed.

“Your proposed action denigrates the Constitution and defies the rule of law”. “It disrupts domestic tranquility and therefore the general welfare of the states”.

S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson has joined the top prosecutors from Kansas and Colorado in telling the White House that any attempt to relocate terror detainees from Guantanamo Bay to their states would be illegal. The attorneys general asked the administration for an explanation not later than December 4 of its intentions and an articulation of its claimed legal authority to transfer detainees to the mainland.

In the recently approved National Defense Authorization Act, Congress again has blocked the president from making the transfers or using federal funds to facilitate such a move.

The president said he expects the number of prisoners held at Guantanamo could fall below 100 early in 2016, a year before he leaves office in January 2017. The effort has faced hurdles, including opposition among both Republicans and Democrats in Congress.

The decision to hold off on unveiling the plan comes at a politically shaky time for the administration, as it’s become embroiled in a new political fight with the GOP-controlled Congress over the fate of Syrian refugees who want to resettle in the U.S.

US President Barack Obama on Thursday vowed to press forward with vexed efforts to shut the controversial army jail at Guantanamo Bay, saying the variety of inmates might quickly be decrease than 100. Like the attorneys general, he said moving prisoners from Guantanamo will compromise the nation’s security and harm its troops.

Dozens of sheriffs in Colorado have also written the administration, saying detainee movement would endanger citizens. Republicans have pointed to reports that a refugee from Syria who was allowed into France took part in the plot as evidence that it would be a mistake to transfer a few detainees onto USA soil.