Haley pleads with Congress not to bring Gitmo detainees to SC
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley on Thursday came to Capitol Hill to plead with House lawmakers not to let Guantánamo Bay detainees be brought to her state.
Haley, a rising star in the Republican Party, told members of a House Homeland Security subcommittee that proposals to bring suspected terrorists to the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, S.C., would dramatically affect the local economy, make the community vulnerable to extremist violence and cast a shadow of fear over the public.
{mosads}“You could pay the state of South Carolina to host these terrorists and we wouldn’t take them for any amount of money. There is no price,” she claimed.
“What company is going to invest in a state where they keep these heinous terrorists? They’re not going to,” Haley added.
“Who’s going to come vacation in a state that is now known to house these terrorists?”
There are 80 detainees remaining at the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Of those, 46 have been deemed too dangerous for release.
Under a plan submitted to Congress by the Obama administration earlier this year, those detainees would be brought to unidentified facilities in the U.S., and the rest would be transferred abroad.
The Obama administration has acknowledged that federal law currently bans the White House from closing the detention facility despite the president’s pledge do to so since his 2008 campaign.
But Defense Department officials have previously examined the Brig in Charleston as one possible site for transferring the detainees, along with Fort Leavenworth in Kansas.
Critics of the move live under the threat of a new Democratic president and Congress that could reverse course if the party makes gains in November.
Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner, said earlier this year that she supported Obama’s plan to shutter the facility.
“Over the years, Guantanamo has inspired more terrorists than it has imprisoned,” she said in a statement. “Closing Guantanamo would be a sign of strength and resolve.”
But closing the facility, Haley argued Thursday, would do little to quash extremism around the globe.
“This line of thinking is giving the terrorists too much credit and too much validity,” she said. “Terrorists do not need a jail to hate us; they hate us on their own.”
Any facility that housed the terrorists in the U.S. would be a target for al Qaeda and other radical organizations, as well as “lone wolf” extremists who officials warn are the biggest threat to the country, Haley warned.
It would also become a magnet for protests, she claimed, which would force the state to beef up the security and diminish terrorism. That’s not to mention the cloud of fear that Haley promised would follow the suspected terrorists, including alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
“We can talk about cost, but you can’t put a cost on fear,” she insisted. “You can’t put a cost on what it will do to a state.”
Haley has long been under intense scrutiny as a possible running mate for a Republican presidential candidate, but the options for her future on a national stage have dimmed. She originally endorsed Marco Rubio, and then switched to Ted Cruz after Rubio dropped out earlier this year.
This week, however, Cruz announced that former Hewlett-Packard executive Carly Fiorina would be his running mate, an attempt to shake up his flagging campaign.
The Brig in Charleston has previously hosted ex-Guantánamo detainee Yaser Esam Hamdi, and a state prison is now home to Dylann Roof, the accused gunman in last summer’s slaughter of nine people at Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Democrats on the House panel pointed to those captives on Thursday to claim that Haley’s complaints were overblown.
“The fact that you can hold a domestic terrorist means you have the ability to safely house a dangerous person that others would want to do harm to,” Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.) argued.
“This is just a classic example of all the American territories and states saying ‘not in my backyard.’ ”
Haley bristled at the allegation.
“Last summer, the city of Charleston stared hate in the eyes. We know true hate,” she said. “We don’t need to see it again nor do we wish it on any other state.
“I don’t want it going to any state in the country,” Haley added. “This is not my backyard; this is the United States of America.”
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