'There Should Be No Further Releases From Gitmo,' Trump Says

President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly issued announcements and proposals over Twitter, both during the presidential election and the transition period. Trump has made a habit of issuing 140-character statements, often late at night, that can drive the national conversation.

Incoming White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer has promised that the tweets will continue. “He has this direct pipeline to the American people, where he can talk back and forth,” Spicer recently explained to WPRI, adding that Twitter allows him to “put his thoughts out and hear what they’re thinking in a way that no one’s ever been able to do before.”

The Tweet

There should be no further releases from Gitmo. These are extremely dangerous people and should not be allowed back onto the battlefield.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2017

The Prompt

The Washington Post editorial board urged him late Monday to close the U.S. detention center, arguing that its continued existence hands “easy propaganda victories to enemies of the United States.” NPR on Tuesday reported that the White House is pushing to get the detainees who have been cleared for release out of Guantanamo before Trump is sworn in later this month. Neither is likely to have persuaded him to change his mind.

The Context

At its peak, the prison in Guantanamo held 775 prisoners who were captured in the war on terrorism. Candidate Barack Obama vowed to close the facility during his first year in office. Although he failed, he did succeed in transferring the overwhelming majority of detainees to their home countries or those nations that would take them. About 40 remain.

The Response

Trump’s tweet can be broken up into two parts. In the first, he says, the detainees “are extremely dangerous people” though some 19 of them who are awaiting transfer have been vetted by intelligence, military, and law enforcement officials. At least 40 prisoners are being held indefinitely, though military and intelligence officials now believe many of the dozens of detainees were improperly labeled “the worst of the worst” and unfit for release. In the second part of his tweet, Trump says the detainees “should not be allowed back onto the battlefield.” That’s a common refrain among those opposed to closing Guantanamo. But, as my colleague Marina Koren noted last year, Congress-mandated reports from the Obama administration’s intelligence officials show the rate of confirmed recidivism is about 17 percent—or fewer than 1 in 5.