Two more Gitmo detainees engaging in terrorism after their release is “the exclamation point” on why it’s important for the House to pass a bill Thursday morning to ban transfers from Guantanamo Bay for the rest of the year, the bill’s sponsor said.
Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., told the Washington Examiner that her bill would prevent President Obama from fulfilling his campaign promise to close the detention center and instead punt the decision to the next president.
“I think it’s really common sense that our commander in chief should take his hands off releasing these detainees to satisfy some sort of political promise,” Walorski said Thursday morning ahead of the vote. “This is not a forever ban, this is basically just taking this into the next presidency, and I think the American people need to hear from the two candidates how they stand on this issue as well.”
Donald Trump said last month that he would support prosecuting Americans accused of terrorism at the Cuban military detention center. Hillary Clinton said in February that she supported Obama’s plan to close Gitmo, which would see some detainees transferred to facilities in the U.S.
Walorski’s bill, which has more than 70 Republican cosponsors, would prohibit any transfer out of Gitmo until Jan. 1 or the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, which could contain stricter Gitmo transfer language, becomes law, whichever comes first. She said she expects it to pass the House when lawmakers consider it Thursday morning.
Guantanamo Bay houses 61 detainees. Obama has transferred more than three dozen detainees in 2016, including the largest of his presidency, when 15 detainees were sent to the United Arab Emirates.
Two of those released this year are confirmed to have engaged in terrorism since being released, while another 11 are suspected of it, according to reports late Wednesday night.
Walorski, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, said recent comments by the president re-upping his commitment to close the detention center suggest that he’s going to release more over the next couple months, including some who she said were not cleared for release in the recent past.
“I’ve spent a lot of time in the SCIF [Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility] reading the backgrounds of these people. Some of these people were declared dangerous not too long ago, but then shifted into OK to release,” she said. “What’s happened over the last couple months that these people were deemed too dangerous and now they’re OK to release?”
Obama this week threatened to veto Walorski’s bill if it reaches his desk. Asked whether there was enough support to override a veto, Walorski said her next focus will be on passing the bill in the Senate, where Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., is taking the lead.
“Terrorists captured by U.S. forces belong in Guantanamo, period,” Daines said when he introduced the bill this year. “We can’t allow terrorists who are looking to harm Americans and others be political pawns.”
