In a hearing on Guantanamo Bay transfers to the U.S. Thursday, Gov. Nikki Haley (R., S.C.) said that closing the detention facility would not eliminate anti-U.S. terrorist propaganda because terrorists will hate the U.S. with or without Guantanamo Bay.
"Moving detention operations from a secure facility outside of the continental United States and into Charleston will not stop the propaganda," Haley said, referring to the Obama administration’s argument that Guantanamo Bay is used as a terrorist recruitment tool.
"This line of thinking is giving the terrorists too much credit, and too much validity," Haley said before the House Homeland Security Committee. "Terrorists do not need a jail to hate us. They hate us on their own."
During his campaign for president in 2008, President Barack Obama promised to "immediately close" the Cuba-based detention facility. He argued that the prison is "contrary to our values."
In February, Obama released a plan detailing the transfer of 91 Guantanamo Bay detainees to 13 potential sites including a Naval Consolidated Brig near Charleston, a Supermax prison in Colorado, and a military prison in Kansas.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said in February that the proposal to transfer terrorists into America was illegal and driven by Obama’s desire to fulfill an old promise.
"President Obama seems to remain captured on one matter by a campaign promise he made way back in 2008," said McConnell. "His ill-considered crusade to close the secure detention facility at Guantanamo."
"[Obama’s] Attorney General recently confirmed that it is illegal–illegal–for the president to transfer any of these terrorists into the United States," McConnell said.