One of Barack Obama’s consistent pledges as a candidate for president and after his election was to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. That was a worthwhile goal. But it is one he should abandon after the U.S. Senate on Tuesday joined the House in passing a 2016 national defense act that bars transfers of prisoners to the mainland.
He should abide by the restriction rather than defy Congress and claim authority to act on his own.
Obama vetoed an earlier version of the defense bill last month for budgetary reasons but also cited his objection to the Guantanamo language. But since Congress met the president’s budget demands in the reworked bill, it would be shocking for him to veto it again solely over Guantanamo, especially given huge majorities supporting the bill in both chambers.
Alarmingly, though, there are reports the president could act unilaterally to transfer prisoners. According to The Wall Street Journal, “The White House has been working on plans for executive action, including legal justifications. Administration officials have been increasingly candid that it is a route the president is willing to take.”
He shouldn’t. We say that having supported all along his goal of closing Guantanamo as well as the policy of finding countries willing to accept enemy combatants. As a result, the facility now houses only 112 prisoners, compared to a high of more than 600 in 2003.
We’ve also deplored fear-mongering by lawmakers who claim that moving prisoners to the U.S. would endanger nearby communities. Such rhetoric is especially jarring in Colorado, which is home to a veritable who’s who of terrorists at Supermax in Florence.
But Congress does have the power of the purse. If it decides, however unwisely, to bar “the use of funds provided to any department or agency … for the transfer or release of individuals” detained at Guantanamo to or within the U.S., then Obama should abide by the prohibition rather than resort to a clever legal rationale that claims he can act on his own.
Even the president’s executive order in 2009 to review possible closure of the prison said it would be implemented “subject to the availability of appropriations.”
But those appropriations, unfortunately, never came to pass.
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