The Obama administration is transferring 30 of Guantanamo Bay’s 80 remaining prisoners to other countries in June and July, the Associated Press reported Sunday.
The mass movement intensifies a strategy the administration is relying on to empty the military prison in Cuba before Obama leaves office, thereby somewhat fulfilling Obama’s major campaign promise to close the controversial facility.
Since his first year in office, Congress has prevented Obama from moving prisoners onto U.S. soil. Now Republicans are hoping to block transfers to third-party countries as well.
So far, 691 detainees have been transferred out of Gitmo since President George W. Bush first authorized their confinement there on Jan. 11, 2002.
