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President Obama’s renewed push close the Guantánamo Bay prison is hitting a wall of resistance in Congress.
Obama announced to great fanfare last month that he was restarting the effort to close the prison by transferring detainees cleared for release. He followed up this week by appointing a new envoy at the State Department to focus on the effort.
But Congress moved quickly to thwart Obama’s plans. The House voted against lifting restrictions on moving detainees to the United States and approved an amendment that prevents the president from using funds to return some detainees to Yemen
Meanwhile, an amendment from Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) that would have lifted the restrictions on transfers from Guantanamo was rejected, with 21 Democrats and all but two Republicans voting against it.
“It’s a very big problem, I think a lot of [lawmakers] would like to not have to think about it,” said Andrea Prasow, communications director for Human Rights Watch. “I find it incredibly depressing that’s the state of our politics right now.”
Read more: Obama
Apparently closing a facility that violates human rights, and that needed to be closed a long time ago, and barring prisoners to be transferred that have already have been transferred is "being weak on terrorism". Can we move away form these idiotic talking points and actually just close the **** hole down already? It hurts are international reputation, Islamic extremist terrorists use it as propaganda to recruit people to "fight against the great Satan", and its inherently unjust.