At the end of 2014, Obama was reminded of his goal of closing Guantanamo Bay. When asked whether he would close the detention facility, he said that he was committed to doing “everything I can to close it”.
Of course, it’s obvious that people have been following up with the progress of this goal recently too. The Miami Herald has kept people abreast of this development, in writing, “U.S. troops delivered six long-held Yemeni prisoners from Guantanamo for resettlement in the Arabian Sea nation Oman on Friday, early Saturday, resuming transfers that had been stalled for months. The mission reduced the detainee population at the prison camps to 116 captives, 51 cleared for transfers with security assurances from the nation taking them in.”
As a result of this move, Republicans have expressed outrage at these transfers. In particular, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said that at a time when Islamic extremists are making their presence felt, Obama’s policy of releasing hardened terrorists are adding numbers to their ranks. He also said that the administration should not free terrorists while also reassess its detainee policies as well.
That said, these six detainees were clear for release almost five years ago. Better still: all of them have not been charged with a crime since then. Anyways, from a wider perspective, the Obama administration has had success in speeding up the process and where the number of detainees will drop to 116 of them.
Although, this seems to be working for the Obama administration, the Republicans are against closing of the detention facility even if the U.S military leaders are in favor of the move themselves.