Category Archives: Cuba

Trump’s Guantanamo Detention Center Executive Order

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Image result for fleury merogis prison Image result for fleury merogis prison

Fleury-Merogis located in France is the largest prison in Europe. While French leadership say they don’t want a newer version of Guantanamo, perhaps they should just visit the facility in Cuba. This article regarding common criminals in France housed with terrorists is a summary with 2 opposing views given how the inmates there are managed. What is really at issue for sentencing of terrorists in Europe is the how short the time really is for those involved in terror and militant actions.

In the United States, we are soon to be facing another scary condition, the release of terrorists after serving their full sentence. Now what? Well, I had the pleasure of interview Patrick Dunleavey on this very topic. (Segment 3 and 4)

The draft executive order for Guantanamo is found here. It is not in final form, nor has it been signed.

NYT/WASHINGTON — The Trump White House is nearing completion of an order that would direct the Pentagon to bring future Islamic State detainees to the Guantánamo Bay prison, despite warnings from national security officials and legal scholars that doing so risks undermining the effort to combat the group, according to administration officials and a draft executive order obtained by The New York Times.

White House officials have detailed their thinking about a new detainee policy in an evolving series of drafts of an executive order being circulated among national security officials for comment. While previous versions have shown that the draft has undergone many changes — including dropping language about reviving C.I.A. prisons — the plan to add Islamic State detainees to the Guantánamo population has remained constant.

The latest version of the draft, which circulated this week, would direct Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to use Guantánamo to detain suspected members of “Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces, including individuals and networks associated with the Islamic State.”

The White House has kept similar language in the draft order despite warnings from career government national security officials that carrying out its plan would give federal judges an opportunity to reject the executive branch’s theory that the war against the Islamic State is legal, even though Congress never explicitly authorized it. The issue could arise when reviewing an inevitable habeas corpus lawsuit filed by an ISIS detainee.

The Obama administration first argued in late summer 2014 that the Islamic State was part of the existing armed conflict that Congress authorized in 2001 against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. But while the Islamic State got its start as Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq more than a decade ago, that theory is disputed because the two groups later split and went to war with each other.

“It raises huge legal risks,” said Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law School professor and former senior Justice Department official in the Bush administration. “If a judge says the Sept. 11 authorization does not cover such a detention, it would not only make that detention unlawful, it would weaken the legal basis for the entire war against the Islamic State.”

Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, did not respond to an email seeking comment on the issue.

The Times reported on Feb. 4 that the White House had limited the draft order so that it focused on carrying out President Trump’s vow to keep the Guantánamo prison open and use it for newly captured detainees. That draft of the order dropped the ideas of reopening C.I.A. prisons and permitting interrogators to use harsher techniques than those now allowed in the Army Field Manual.

That report was based on accounts by people familiar with a version that circulated last week. But a new draft order circulated this week, titled “Protecting America Through Lawful Detention of Terrorist and Other Designated Enemy Elements,” includes some revisions. The latest version, unlike the previous one, explicitly revokes President Barack Obama’s January 2009 executive order directing the government to close the prison by January 2010, a deadline it failed to meet.

The revised text also dropped references to revitalizing the use of the military commissions system at Guantánamo for prosecuting terrorism suspects, and instead focused exclusively on detention policy — like its directive to use the prison to detain captured Islamic State suspects without trial.

In the 2012 version of the annual National Defense Authorization Act, Congress bolstered the government’s power to imprison suspected members of Al Qaeda, the Taliban and associated forces by authorizing such detentions without reference to the Sept. 11 attacks. But while it has provided funds for military operations against the Islamic State, it has never explicitly authorized combat or detention operations against it.

In summer 2014, when the group swept out of Syria and began rapidly conquering swaths of Iraq, Mr. Obama launched a bombing campaign to curtail its advances. At the time, he put forth the theory that the group’s early ties to Al Qaeda were sufficient to bring it under the Sept. 11 war authorization without new action from Congress.

Nevertheless, in 2015, the Obama administration asked Congress to enact an authorization for use of military force against the Islamic State. Lawmakers disagreed about whether it should place limits on the use of ground forces or impose an expiration date, and Congress never acted on the proposal. Congress has continued to give no sign that it has the will or the consensus to explicitly authorize war on the Islamic State.

Last year, an army captain sued Mr. Obama, arguing that the war was illegal because Congress had not authorized it. A Federal District Court judge dismissed the lawsuit without ruling on the legal merits, saying the plaintiff lacked standing to bring the case.

But any Islamic State detainee at Guantánamo would have legal standing to get a court to rule on the question of whether the group is legitimately part of the war against Al Qaeda.

Ryan Goodman, a New York University law professor who worked at the Pentagon during the Obama administration, said there were other reasons bringing an Islamic State detainee to Guantánamo for indefinite detention, as opposed to prosecuting him in civilian court, might raise problems: Foreign allies, he said, might refuse to turn over prisoners or assist in detention operations if that was the administration’s goal.

But even if that turns out not to be the case, he said, the legal risks of bringing a suspected member of the Islamic State, sometimes referred to as ISIL, are “very serious.”

For Obama, Oman is the ‘go-to’ Country Including Gitmo Detainees

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Primer: In 2013 – US and Iranian officials have been meeting secretly in Oman for the past year with the help of Sultan Qaboos

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — With their destination and mission among America’s closest guarded secrets, the small group of officials hand-picked by President Barack Obama boarded a military plane in March.

The travel plans of the U.S. diplomats and foreign policy advisers were not on any public itineraries. No reception greeted them as they landed. But awaiting the Americans in the remote and ancient Gulf sultanate of Oman was the reason for all the secrecy: a delegation of Iranians ready to meet them.

It was at this first high-level gathering at a secure location in the Omani capital of Muscat, famous for its souk filled with frankincense and myrrh, that the Obama administration began laying the groundwork for this weekend’s historic nuclear pact between world powers and Iran, The Associated Press has learned.

FNC: DUBAI, United Arab Emirates –  Oman said Monday it accepted 10 inmates from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay ahead of President Barack Obama leaving office, part of his efforts to shrink the facility he promised to close.

There was no immediate word from the U.S. Defense Department about the transfer.

Oman’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run Oman News Agency that it had accepted the prisoners at Obama’s request. It did not name the prisoners.

Omani and U.S. military officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.

The sultanate of Oman, on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, previously accepted 10 Guantanamo prisoners from Yemen in January 2016. Oman also took another six in June 2015. Meanwhile, Oman’s neighbor Saudi Arabia took four prisoners on Jan. 5 and the United Arab Emirates took 15 prisoners in the largest-single transfer during Obama’s administration on Aug. 15.

Oman, ruled by Sultan Qaboos bin Said since 1970, has served as an interlocutor between the West and Iran. It also has negotiated a number of prisoner releases in recent years for Western countries.

Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, remains in the grips of a civil war and a Saudi-led military offensive against the rebels — making returning Guantanamo inmates there impossible.

Days earlier, authorities said 19 of the remaining 55 prisoners at the U.S. military base in Cuba were cleared for release and could be freed in the final days of Obama’s presidency.

It was part of an effort by Obama to shrink the prison since he couldn’t close it.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said during his campaign that he not only wants to keep Guantanamo open but “load it up with some bad dudes.”

The U.S. began using its military base on southeast Cuba’s isolated, rocky coast to hold prisoners captured during the Afghanistan invasion, bringing the first planeload on Jan. 11, 2002, and reaching a peak 18 months later of nearly 680.

There were 242 prisoners when Obama took office in 2009, pledging to close what became a source of international criticism over the mistreatment of detainees and the notion of holding people indefinitely, most without charge.

Obama was unable to close Guantanamo because of Congressional opposition to holding any of the men in the United States. That ultimately became a ban on transferring them to U.S. soil for any reason, including trial, making the failure to close the detention center part of his legacy.

The majority of Guantanamo prisoners released have been sent to Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

**** This is only a temporary home for them.

Muscat: Ten prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay facility in Cuba have been released and will “temporarily reside” in Oman, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has announced.

The 10 have been released from Guantanamo Bay and received by the Sultanate at the request of the US government, a senior official at the ministry said in a statement earlier today.

The official said that the 10 prisoners were pardoned following the directives of His Majesty the Sultan in cooperation with the United States government. The 10 will reside temporarily in the Sultanate which considers the release of the prisoners a humanitarian issue.

The statement, carried by the government run Oman News Agency, states: “An official source at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said by following Royal Directive issued by His Majesty the Sultan to meet the American Government’s request to settle the cases of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, considering their humanitarian conditions, 10 people who have been pardoned arrived to the Sultanate for a temporary stay.”

**** Those released are:

Ghaleb Nassar Al Bihani, Mustafa Abd al-Qawi Abd al-Aziz Al-Shamiri, Karim Bostam, Abdul Sahir, Musab Omar Ali Al-Mudwani, Hail Aziz Ahmed Al-Maythali, Salman Yahya Hassan Mohammad Rabei’i, Mohammed Al-Ansi, Muhammad Ahmad Said Haider, and Walid Said bin Said Zaid.

DHS Suddenly Terminates Cuban Wet Foot Dry Foot Program

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A call into Senator Rubio’s office was met with voicemail and no return phone call as of yet.

Mr. Obama also ended a program to entice Cuban doctors working in other countries to flee to the U.S. Members of Congress said they weren’t consulted on the changes. Administration officials said they had to keep the negotiations quiet so they didn’t spark a surge of migrants trying to beat the announcement. Some 40,000 Cubans were granted parole under wet-foot, dry-foot in 2015, and 54,000 were admitted in 2016. “Cuba is North Korea with beaches, and Obama has worked overtime to try to make Cuba be just like every other country in the hemisphere,” he said. More here.

 

CBS/WASHINGTON — Citing the sharp uptick in the number of Cuban migrants to U.S. shores since the 2014 reopening of relations, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announced a repeal of the “wet foot, dry foot” policy effectively immediately and that Havana has agreed to amend domestic laws to accept those deported, CBS News’ Margaret Brennan reported.

The policy change will not result in the immediate deportations of Cubans already in the U.S. The policy applies going forward to those who arrive in the U.S. illegally by land or sea. Cubans will be treated like any other migrants and will still be able to apply for asylum based on their individual cases. The Cuban Family Reunification Parole Program will continue. The Coast Guard will continue to interdict migrants at sea.

Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, acknowledged that the White House had previously denied it would adopt the policy, but said today that this was in part due to the fact that the U.S. did not want to encourage more Cubans to flee. He said that the majority of those fleeing Cuba in recent years are doing so for “economic opportunity” and not due to political persecution. Asylum is still available for those who have legitimate claims of persecution.

The policy change is something Cuba has wanted for decades and is part of Mr. Obama’s normalization of relations.

Despite the change, however, the framework for “wet foot, dry foot” – the Cuban Adjustment act – remains in place. The White House is calling on Congress to repeal it.

The new agreement does not change the existing 1994/1995 accord with Cuba stipulating that the U.S. will accept 20,000 Cubans per year. Those are people who would come to the U.S. through authorized procedures.

The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), an advocacy organization in Washington, D.C. that works to advance human rights in the Americas, said it supports the change in policy.

“The Obama Administration has taken a positive step toward a more sensible Cuban immigration policy, one that ends preferential treatment for Cubans compared with others who arrive without visas,” WOLA Program Director Geoff Thale said in a statement on Thursday.

Thale said, “WOLA and many colleagues have recommended to the Administration that it should both end preferential treatment for Cubans and increase the number of visas available to Cubans who pursue regular immigration routes.”

The U.S. and Cuba released a joint statement late Thursday confirming the change in policy.

The “wet foot, dry foot” policy was put in place in 1995 by President Bill Clinton as a revision of a more liberal immigration policy. Until then, Cubans caught at sea trying to make their way to the United States were allowed into the country and were able to become legal residents after a year. The U.S. was reluctant to send people back to the communist island then run by Fidel Castro, and the Cuban government also generally refused to accept repatriated citizens.

The Cuban government has in the past complained bitterly about the special immigration privileges, saying they encourage Cubans to risk dangerous escape trips and drain the country of professionals. But it has also served as a release valve for the single-party state, allowing the most dissatisfied Cubans to seek better lives outside and become sources of financial support for relatives on the island.

The changes would be the latest step by Obama to normalize relations with Cuba.

Relations between the United States and Cuba were stuck in a Cold War freeze for decades, but Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro established full diplomatic ties and opened embassies in their capitals in 2015. Obama visited Havana last March.

U.S. and Cuban officials were meeting Thursday in Washington to coordinate efforts to fight human trafficking. A decades-old U.S. economic embargo, though, remains in place as does the Cuban Adjustment Act which lets Cubans become permanent residents a year after legally arriving in the U.S.

The official said that in recent years, most people fleeing the island have done so for economic reasons or to take advantage of the benefits they know they can receive if they make it to the U.S.

The official also cited an uptick in Cuban migration, particularly across the U.S.-Mexico border – an increase the official said reflected an expectation among Cubans that the Obama administration would soon move to end their special immigration status.

Since October 2012, more than 118,000 Cubans have presented themselves at ports of entry along the border, according to statistics published by the Homeland Security Department. During the 2016 budget year, which ended in September, a five-year high of more than 41,500 people came through the southern border. An additional 7,000 people arrived between October and November.

The influx has created burdens on other countries in the region that must contend with Cubans who have yet to reach the U.S. border, the official said.

The Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program, which was started by President George W. Bush in 2006, is also being rescinded. The measure allowed Cuban doctors, nurses and other medical professionals to seek parole in the U.S. while on assignments abroad.

People already in the pipeline under both “wet foot, dry foot” and the medical parole program will be able to continue the process toward getting legal status.

The preferential treatment for Cubans reflected the political power of Cuban-Americans, especially in Florida, a critical state in presidential elections. That has been shifting in recent years. Older Cubans, particularly those who fled Castro’s regime, tend to reject Obama’s diplomatic overtures to Cuba. Younger Cuban-American voters have proven less likely than their parents and grandparents to define their politics by U.S.-Cuba relations. Exit polls show President Barack Obama managed roughly a split in the Florida Cuban vote in 2012, and Trump in November won the same group by a much narrower margin than many previous Republican nominees.

Are Un-Vetted Illegals Sitting Next to you on the Plane?

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Feds Admit to Putting Migrants on Planes for U.S. Destinations

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have admitted that they are not only releasing illegal immigrants at bus stations, they are also “identify[ing]” and transporting them to airports for travel to various destinations within the country. Officials say these undocumented migrants are from Central America.

The migrants are given notices to appear and are promising to later reappear before an immigration judge. Missing from the recent announcement is an explanation of the types of identification are being used to board commercial flights.

The announcement from immigration and enforcement officials that they are taking illegal immigrants to airports, came in response to a local news report and inquiry by KGNS.

Breitbart Texas and KGNS reported during the first days of January that bus station employees in Laredo, Texas were reporting that a holding center for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was releasing between 20 and 40 undocumented women during at least five bus trips.

8KGNS-TV first heard that 400 migrants were headed to the border city but it has been difficult to ascertain the definite number released by the agency. Officials said that the undocumented females met federal release eligibility requirements. Local officials say that the City of Laredo was not notified by anyone in the federal government.

ICE officials sent KGNS a statement that acknowledged what they reported on January 2 about just one of the groups of women. The statement said:

On December 29th, officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Laredo, Texas, released 39 females from Central America on their own recognizance after they were briefly detained and issued notices to appear before a federal immigration judge.

During the recent increase of individuals illegally entering the United States in south Texas, individuals who have final destinations within the U.S. are identified and transported to bus terminals and airports.

The question remains just how these “individuals who have final destinations within the U.S.” are “identified” before they are transported to not only bus terminals but to U.S. airports. Breitbart Texas sent an inquiry requesting information on how many illegal aliens were transported at taxpayer expense via commercial airlines. The inquiry also included a request for the type of identification being used by these passengers allowing them to board the airline flights.

In July 2014, Breitbart Texas reported that according to information exclusively provided to us from the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC), illegal aliens were being allowed to fly on commercial airliners without valid identification. “The aliens who are getting released on their own recognizance are being allowed to board and travel commercial airliners by simply showing their Notice to Appear forms,” NBPC’s Local 2455 Spokesman, Hector Garza, told Breitbart Texas at the time.

The Local 2455 Border Patrol spokesman said that the planes being used by the migrants were “the same planes that the American public uses for domestic travel.” More important details here from Breitbart.

2015 Judicial Watch:

To facilitate the often treacherous process of entering the United States illegally through the southern border, the Obama administration is offering free transportation from three Central American countries and a special refugee/parole program with “resettlement assistance” and permanent residency.

Under the new initiative the administration has rebranded the official name it originally assigned to the droves of illegal immigrant minors who continue sneaking into the U.S. They’re no longer known as Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC), a term that evidently was offensive and not politically correct enough for the powerful open borders movement. The new arrivals will be officially known as Central American Minors (CAM) and they will be eligible for a special refugee/parole that offers a free one-way flight to the U.S. from El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras. The project is a joint venture between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the State Department.

Specifically, the “program provides certain children in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras with a safe, legal, and orderly alternative to the dangerous journey that some children are undertaking to the United States,” according to a DHS memo obtained by JW this week. The document goes on to say that the CAM program has started accepting applications from “qualifying parents” to bring their offspring under the age of 21 from El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras. The candidates will then be granted a special refugee parole, which includes many taxpayer-funded perks and benefits. Among them is a free education, food stamps, medical care and living expenses.

During a special teleconference this week officials from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the State Department explained how CAM will work. Only “friendly” groups and individuals invited by the government were allowed to participate and the event was not open to the media. Judicial Watch attended as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) with interest in the matter. Obama administration officials offered an overview of the new CAM initiative and confirmed that the U.S. has deployed staff to the region to handle the influx of applicants. A State Department official promoted CAM as a “family reunification” program that will be completely funded by American taxpayers, though the official claimed to have no idea what the cost will be.

Then there is this:

Providing Immigration Benefits & Information

The Department of Homeland Security, through U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), provides immigration benefits to people who are entitled to stay in the U.S. on a temporary or permanent basis. These benefits include

  • granting of U.S. citizenship to those who are eligible to naturalize,
  • authorizing individuals to reside in the U.S. on a permanent basis, and
  • providing aliens with the eligibility to work in the United States

Humanitarian Immigration Programs

Gitmo Detainees Transfer Announced

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The Department of Defense announced today the transfer of four detainees: Salem Ahmad Hadi Bin Kanad, Muhammed Rajab Sadiq Abu Ghanim, Abdallah Yahya Yusif Al-Shibli, and Muhammad Ali Abdallah Muhammad Bwazir from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As directed by the president’s Jan. 22, 2009, executive order, the interagency Guantanamo Review Task Force conducted a comprehensive review of these cases.

As a result of those reviews, which examined a number of factors, including security issues, Al-Shibli and Bwazir were unanimously approved for transfer by the six departments and agencies comprising the task force. Periodic Review Boards consisting of representatives from the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, and State; the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence determined continued law of war detention of Kanad and Ghanim does not remain necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States.

As a result of those reviews, which examined a number of factors, including security issues, Kanad and Ghanim were recommended for transfer by consensus of the six departments and agencies comprising the Periodic Review Board. The Periodic Review Board process was established by the president’s March 7, 2011 Executive Order 13567.

Date of Periodic Review Board final determination:

Salem Ahmad Hadi Bin Kanad              May 5, 2016

Muhammed Rajab Sadiq Abu Ghanim July 6, 2016

The United States is grateful to the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia  for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The United States coordinated with the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia  to ensure these transfers took place consistent with appropriate security and humane treatment measures. Today, 55 detainees remain at Guantanamo Bay.

****

Ibrahim Qosi (above): Freed in 2012 to Sudan. Two years later, became a leader in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula  and has been featured in the terror group’s videos. The group has a at least three other senior members who were in Guantanamo and freed. It has taken credit for a string of international terror attacks, including the Charlie Hebdo shooting in 2015 and the attempted Christmas Day ‘underwear’ bombing in 2009.

Obama plans mass transfer of fanatics who have threatened to bomb and behead Americans

The group being released will be drawn from those held at Guantanamo – who include an accused senior al Qaeda bomb-maker, the terror group’s top financial manager, and two intended 9/11 hijackers, who have all been held in the Cuba-based U.S. detention facility for more than a decade.

According to a military source briefed on the process, 22 detainees are being prepared for transfer out of the camp, also known as Gitmo, before January 20.

Although the White House has not specified which inmates will be transferred out – or which foreign countries have agreed to accept them – it has indicated that this will be a priority for Obama in his final days in office.

‘I can’t speak to any individual notifications that have been made to Congress or give you a specific preview about upcoming transfers,’ said White House press secretary Josh Earnest.

Obama will likely focus on moving the 23 detainees who have been ‘cleared for transfer’ – a group that includes the alleged head of al Qaeda’s bomb-manufacturing operation in eastern Afghanistan, the head of al Qaeda’s Tunisian faction in Afghanistan, and senior weapons trainers.

Those held in Guantanamo in recent years have been dubbed ‘the worst of the worst’ by military and intelligence officials. More here.