The Pentagon plans to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center in the following week. The closing comes with a possible transfer of detainees who are not supposed to be set at liberty. One of the chosen sites is the Centennial Correctional Facility located in Colorado.
Officials of the Obama administration have a list where the new possible prison location will be, which includes Colorado, South Carolina, and Kansas. All of these locations will be reviewed and evaluated based on the benefits or pitfalls of the chosen area. Some of the criteria on where the new prison site will be erected also depends on construction costs, capability of housing military and health care facilities, according to the Associated Press.
Colorado Republican Sen. Cory Gardner expressed his disapproval regarding the relocation of high-profile prisoners to Colorado.
"I will not sit idly by while the president uses political promises to imperil the people of Colorado by moving enemy combatants from Cuba, Guantanamo Bay, to my state of Colorado," he said, ABC WBAY reported.
This plan of closing down Guantanamo is rooted from Obama saying during his 2008 campaign that closing the detention center would a better financial, national, and security decision. Republicans, on the other hand, disapprove of moving the prison in the U.S. mainland since it is a potential harm to the country's security.
Retired military officers send letter to Obama urging him to shut down detention center at Guantanamo pic.twitter.com/EwoZtKMjU9
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) November 5, 2015
Arizona Sen. John McCain seeks for a concrete administration plan regarding the closing of the facility of Guantanamo and where the detainees will be transferred.
"I've asked for six and a half years for this administration to come forward with a plan -- a plan that we could implement in order to close Guantanamo. They have never come forward with one and it would have to be approved by Congress," he said, according to Fox News.
