Prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay military lockup should stay there, House Speaker Paul Ryan insists — and Sen. John McCain vows Congress will block any end-around by the Obama administration to close the facility.
"Guantanamo detainees should be in Guantanamo," Ryan declared Thursday, a day after the White House refused to rule out an executive order to shutter the detention center in Cuba.
The Wall Street Journal reports President Barack Obama appears
more likely to take executive action to close Guantanamo to fulfill one of his 2008 election promises, as he works on a revised plan to shutter the facility.
There are 112 prisoners left at the prison.
"It's disgraceful, because I have asked for six and a half years for this administration to come forward with a plan — a plan that we could implement and close Guantanamo," McCain said Thursday,
The Hill reports.
"He lies when he says that he really wants to close Guantanamo with the cooperation of Congress, because he's never sent over a plan."
Any closing plan, he added, "should be approved by Congress," McCain said.
"They're going to try and do it by executive order. You're going to see attempts by Congress to reverse that, including [through] funding mechanisms."
Obama vetoed a defense policy bill last month, partly because of language restricting where Guantanamo prisoners could be moved.
A new version of the bill — which kept those restrictions but reversed course on budgetary maneuvers — passed the House Thursday.
The Hill reports Obama has indicated he won't veto the new version.
Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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