Fears Of 'Guantanamo North' Amid Search For Prison Sites
MIAMI (AP) -- Attorney Omar Farah met with three clients last month at the prison on the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and each worriedly asked a version of the same question: Are we going to the United States?
President Barack Obama will soon present a new plan to close the Guantanamo detention center in an attempt to finally fulfill a pledge made the first day of his first term in office, and remove what many consider a stain on the country's human rights record.
But with the administration evaluating possible sites to hold Guantanamo inmates in the United States, even the most vocal advocates for shuttering the prison are concerned that closure will simply mean creating a "Guantanamo north," moving detainees to a less high-profile location, while continuing to hold them indefinitely.
"Guantanamo is a symbol of injustice because many of the men there have been imprisoned without charge or trial for more than a decade," said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "Moving the men to a prison in the United States won't address this injustice; it will just create a new Guantanamo in place of the old one."
Meanwhile an effort to winnow the detainee population appears to have bogged down as authorities wrestle with what to do with those who cannot easily be brought to trial but are considered too dangerous to free, and others who have been cleared for release but can't be sent to their home countries.
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