Senate Passes Bill That Keeps Gitmo Detainees Off US Soi

Only three senators voted against the legislation, with 91 casting their ballots in favor.

Authorizes $3.8 billion for the Afghan national security forces.

Though concerns about Congress’s continued objection to the Guantanamo plan were mentioned in Obama’s veto decision, it was the maneuver by the Republican-controlled Congress to put an extra 38 billion dollar in war funding account to skirt spending caps that prompted the rare veto of the annual defense policy bill.

The votes for the National Defense Authorization Act, known as the NDAA, dealt a blow to Obama’s pledge to close the prison before leaving office in 2017. Among other criticisms, he cited provisions that make it hard to transfer detainees out of Guantanamo. Republican critics used the president’s veto to accuse him of being willing to “hold our troops and their families ransom” for political reasons despite a tumultuousness global security environment. “Investigations have been conducted by U.S. authorities, however, our report highlights that this investigation into abuses at Guantanamo were not impartial and effective”, Lucile Sengler, OHDIR adviser on anti-terrorism issues, said at the press conference.

Congress has included language in the authorization bill “for years now” to prevent the president from closing the facility without an act of Congress, McCain said, giving the legislative branch leverage with the courts.

President Obama promised in his campaign speech to close the controversial facility, yet 112 prisoners are still held there. The position had been vacant for six months.

President Obama is expected to sign the Senate bill despite his desire to close the prison.

The Pentagon also is looking at sites in Kansas and SC for its proposal to move a few 53 Guantanamo detainees eligible for transfer.

Congress has passed a defense spending bill that includes a provision banning the White House from moving detainees from Guantanamo Bay to the United States.

Last week, the White House signalled that Mr Obama might use his executive authority to close the facility.

“What the president does believe though is that there are a number of provisions in the NDAA that are important to running and protecting the country”, Earnest said.

America Rising spokesperson Amelia Chassé said that Guantanamo demonstrates the disconnect between Hassan and the constituents she hopes to represent.

“We do not question the ability of Bureau of Prisons to detain these prisoners”, the sheriffs said.

The Obama administration aims to transfer eligible detainees to foreign countries, prosecute those who can be prosecuted, and move to USA soil suspects who cannot be prosecuted but are deemed too risky to release, an option now, thankfully, barred by law.

While civilian prisons were built to keep inmates in, they were not created to deter or repel organized attacks from the outside.