President Obama will not use an executive order to shut down Guantanamo Bay, according to a report.
Administration officials concluded an executive order would not be practical, making Obama’s promise to close the Cuban-based prison before the end of his second term extremely unlikely.
Anonymous sources told Reuters that without an executive action, closing the prison would fall on Congress and the overturn of a ban of bringing the remaining prisoners to prisons in the United States.
But the administration reportedly decided that overriding that ban via executive order would not have been possible.
“It was just deemed too difficult to get through all of the hurdles that they would need to get through, and the level of support they were likely to receive on it was thought to be too low to generate such controversy, particularly at a sensitive [time] in an election cycle,” the source revealed.
Congressional Republicans have stalled attempts to close the prison and have vowed to challenge an executive action to do so in court.
There are currently 80 detainees in Guantanamo, though at its peak it housed nearly 800 prisoners. In fiscal year 2015, the prison and associated military commission cost $445 million.
Republicans are also wary of bringing the detainees to U.S. prisons, even if they are maximum-security. They also worry that released prisoners will return to militant activities.
“The administration’s goal is to work with Congress to find a solution to close Guantanamo,” Myles Caggins, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, told Reuters.
Caggins also said that the White House has made “substantial progress” in moving prisoners to foreign countries, as 30 of the remaining detainees have been approved for transfer to foreign countries.
Those left include 10 currently being prosecuted in military commissions, with the remaining detainees deemed too dangerous to release or transfer.
Obama issued an order to shut Guantanamo within a year on his first day in office. His plan released to in February to do so has not gained any traction within Congress.
