Cruz wants to expand Guantanamo, jokes Obama might stay there

Repeatedly mentioning that the plan to close the prison began with President Bush, he explained that while once holding almost 800 detainees, the facility now holds less than 100.

As a candidate and as president, Obama has argued that the detention without trial and torture of orange jumpsuit-clad suspects harms America’s image and makes it less safe. More detainees will be safely transferred, reviewing the threat posed by detainees who are not eligible for transfer, and identifying those eligible for military trials.

House Speaker Paul Ryan was quick to respond to the president’s remarks today, tweeting, “Mr. President: It is against the law-& will stay against the law-to transfer terrorist detainees to American soil”.

As the president has stated, responsibly closing the Guantanamo detention facility is a national security imperative.

Earnest said he wasn’t prepared to definitively deny that Obama wouldn’t use an executive order to close Guantanamo Bay, leaving the option open should Congress deny the plan, which they will more than likely do in short order. First, it calls for the transfer of the 35 detainees already cleared for release to other countries with adequate security. Congress has been opposed to closing the facility. “It is no substitute for the legally-required detainee plan the president must submit to Congress”, he said in a statement. “And that proposal will not in any meaningful sense end the core injustice that Guantanamo has represented”.

The U.S. officials say the plan considers 13 different locations in the U.S., including seven existing prison facilities in Colorado, South Carolina and Kansas, as well as six other locations on current military bases. He says Congress will not change the law to allow terrorist detainees on American soil. “Not only are we not going to close Guantanamo, if we capture a terrorist alive, they are going to Guantanamo and we are going to find out everything they know”.

“This plan has my full support”, Obama said. “If it were easy it would have happened years ago”, he said. The administration waited until the last possible date to send the plan to Capitol Hill, despite indications from the Pentagon in the fall it could have presented the final plan then, raising questions about why the government waited to produce the plan, to give itself more time to implement it.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch told a House hearing on Wednesday that she expects to Obama administration to work with Congress on the plan to close Guantanamo.