Earlier this week President Obama announced his administration’s plans that were submitted to Congress to close Guantanamo Bay once and for all. Not only do terrorists use it as a recruiting tool, thus making Americans less safe, but keeping the facility open also runs contrary to American values, he argued.
But on Saturday in the GOP’s weekly address to the nation, Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.) slammed the proposal, explaining that there’s a reason these terrorists are at the detention center, and we should do everything we can to keep them there.
"The president isn’t talking about trying to move people to the United States prison system that are low-level criminals or terrorists. These are the worst of the worst," Walorski, a member the House Armed Services Committee, said in the address, noting 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
"Not only that, but 30 percent of former Guantánamo prisoners are either confirmed or suspected of re-engaging in terrorism," she added. "In fact, just this week, a former Guantánamo prisoner was arrested in Spain after trying to recruit for ISIS.
"There’s a reason these terrorists are in Guantánamo. And we should keep them there.”
"This whole debate is just a distraction from the president’s failure to defeat ISIS," she continued. "But it does speak to a larger point: The president seems to think as if a more timid America would keep us safe. We, in the House, could not disagree more.
"We think a confident America is what keeps the peace. A confident America is what will make us secure,” she added. “So we will continue to do all we can in the House to hold the president accountable, to keep terrorists off our soil and to keep the American people safe.”
As a reminder, it is currently illegal to bring Gitmo detainees to the U.S. under federal law.