Trump Administration officials, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions, are suggesting that President Trump’s campaign promise to start refilling the detention center at Guantanamo Bay could begin soon, with Sessions praising it as a “very fine place” for detainees and insisting that there is no legal reason not to start sending new detainees there.
Related: Neil Gorsuch’s Hearing Revealed Disturbing New Facts About Guantanamo
Guantanamo Bay became synonymous with the worst excesses of the early years of the US global war on terror, a site where detainees were (and many still are) held permanently without charges and often on little concrete evidence, and with no access to the proper U.S. legal system.
President Obama promised on taking office in 2008 to close the facility, but ultimately never did so.
After well over a decade of criticism, the Trump Administration and some Congressional hawks are now embracing Gitmo as a symbol for being “tough” on terror, albeit tough in a routine detainee abuse and legal black hole sort of way.
President Trump has yet to sign an executive order on the guidelines for future use, or really give any clarity on the sorts of detainees he’s liable to order sent to the facility.
President Trump’s campaign statements just insisting he wanted to put “bad dudes” there, which amid his ever-evolving policy positions could wind up being almost anybody.
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