Political Quotes

“There are 80 detainees left at Guantanamo. A number have been transferred. Of those 80, I could be wrong, but I believe it is somewhere in the neighborhood of 34 of them have been cleared for transfer, basically deemed not to be risks to the United States. Restricting their ability to be transferred simply drives up the cost of Guantanamo unnecessarily. We have transferred a great many detainees out of Guantanamo. The statistics cited go all the way back to the Bush administration when, regrettably, we did let people go without proper vetting. We, through this bill, in past years, have put a number of provisions in place that require national security certifications that the people being transferred are not a risk to the United States. That is already required. This simply makes it more difficult to do that for no good reason. The recidivism in recent years has been drastically lower. It has been less than 10 percent, nowhere near the 33 percent figure cited. And the ones that are left to be transferred, like I said, are ones that have been determined not to be a risk. Now, we take our time in transferring these people to make sure that we have a place to transfer them, that it is safe and secure, willing to accept them and all of that. There are already multiple provisions in law to try and make sure that we don't take any chances.…”