People who live and work near the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., fear becoming a target for terrorists if detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are moved there, a local House member said Friday after a town hall meeting with constituents.
“It surely was a bipartisan choir today — they all believe the president is misguided,” Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Kan., told the Washington Examiner. “What we want to prevent is waking up one morning and having the detainees on American soil.”
The annual defense policy law President Obama signed last month contains a provision that would effectively bar him from closing the prison in Cuba and moving the 107 remaining detainees unless Congress approves a plan to do so. Still, many Republicans fear the president will use executive action to close the prison.
“We passed a law and he signed it. He said he wouldn’t do it,” said Jenkins, who sponsored the town hall jointly with fellow Kansas Republican Rep. Mike Pompeo. “The problem is we have watched this president ignore the law before.”
Anyone who thinks Obama, who has pledged to close Guantanamo before he leaves office, will follow the law “is in for a long 13 months,” Pompeo told the crowd.
Fort Leavenworth is one of several places the Pentagon is considering moving the detainees, along with the federal Supermax prison in Colorado and the Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. Like Jenkins and Pompeo, Republicans who represent those communities strongly oppose moving suspected terrorists to the United States.
“Guantanamo is the perfect place to hold some of the world’s most dangerous terrorists, and any effort to close the facility and move the remaining detainees to domestic soil will be met with fierce opposition in Congress and among the American people,” Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., said in a statement.
Republicans have pushed back hard in recent days against the White House’s argument that Obama could close the prison if he determines that keeping it open is a threat to national security and the fact that administration officials are working to release or transfer more than 50 of the remaining detainees.
Their case was bolstered after a video from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula surfaced this week indicating former Guantanamo inmate Ibrahim al-Qosi had become an al Qaeda leader in Yemen. Al-Qosi, a Sudanese national and veteran jihadi fighter, was released to his home country in 2012 after pleading guilty to conspiracy and providing material support to al Qaeda.
The National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm of House Republicans, sent out press releases Friday in several districts around the country held by Democrats highlighting their support for the president’s efforts.
