NDAA signed this week by Biden bars him from closing Gitmo detention center

The annual Pentagon policy bill President Joe Biden signed into law this week bars him from taking steps toward closing the controversial detention facility at the United States’ Naval Station Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Biden, in a statement issued after signing the Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act on Monday, criticized the language included in the bill, which precludes him from sending law of war detainees to certain countries or transferring them to prisons on U.S. soil. The Guantanamo By facility currently houses 39 detainees — all captured early in the American war on terror launched in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

“It is the longstanding position of the executive branch that these provisions unduly impair the ability of the executive branch to determine when and where to prosecute Guantanamo Bay detainees and where to send them upon release,” Biden said in the statement. “In some circumstances these provisions could make it difficult to comply with the final judgment of a court that has directed the release of a detainee on a writ of habeas corpus.”