After touring the U.S. facility at Guantánamo Bay last week, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Monday that lawmakers must come up with an answer about what to do with its remaining detainees there.
President Obama has pledged to close the detainee facility, but Republicans have strongly objected to any move to release its inhabitants or transfer them to mainland U.S. facilities.
“I believe that Congress must debate what we do with the prisoners currently being housed there. The status quo is not an acceptable solution, and I am confident we can find a solution that protects Americans and responsibly manages our tax dollars,” Manchin said in a statement.
{mosads}The West Virginia lawmaker led a bipartisan delegation on a fact-finding mission to Guantánamo on Friday. The group included Sens. Angus King (I-Maine), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.).
The tour examined “detainee facilities and detention operations, the legal status of individual detainees, and the military commissions process that is used to try detainees,” according to Manchin.
He praised the troops serving at the facility but said the detention center “at Guantanamo Bay does not make us safer, and it is wildly expensive.”
About 150 detainees remain at Guantánamo, and 80 have been deemed eligible for release.
Around 90 of those remaining are from Yemen, where al Qaeda operatives have repeatedly broken into prisons and released militants, making it difficult for the U.S. to return detainees there.
Last month, Republican lawmakers warned the administration against releasing any more prisoners while the U.S. is fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
The White House enraged congressional lawmakers from both parties earlier this year when it decided to keep them in the dark ahead of the release of five Taliban commanders from Guantánamo in exchange for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.