WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Roger Wicker, R-Miss., is supporting legislation to place a permanent ban on the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the United States and prohibit the closure or transfer of the U.S. Naval Station there. The measure would also suspend the release of detainees being held at Guantanamo to third-party countries until September 30, 2017. The “Detaining Terrorists to Protect Americans Act of 2016,” S. 2746, is authored by Senator Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H.

“This bill would protect the American people by keeping some of the world’s most dangerous terrorists from being transferred to U.S. soil,” Wicker said. “It would lower the chances that our troops will encounter these detainees in a future combat situation. News that former detainees are finding their way back to the battlefield in larger numbers is cause for alarm. This fact alone warrants a pause in the Administration’s efforts to transfer more detainees to other countries.”

A recent report by the Director of National Intelligence shows that there has been an increase in the percentage of former Guantanamo detainees suspected or confirmed of reengaging in terrorism. From July 2015 to January 2016, the reengagement of these detainees released by the Obama administration has increased by 58 percent, going from 12 to 19.

During a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in March, Paul Lewis, Department of Defense Special Envoy for Guantanamo Detention Closure, stated that “unfortunately, there have been Americans that have died because of Gitmo detainees.”