Will Guantanamo Bay's Prison Ever Close?

In his final State of the Union address this year, President Obama repeated his call to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. “I will keep working to shut down the prison at Guantanamo. It is expensive, it is unnecessary, and it only serves as a recruitment brochure for our enemies,” he said. But as Obama’s presidency comes to its end, he has fallen short of that goal.

The prison, which is located in southeastern Cuba, opened under. In 2006, Bush expressed a desire to shut down the detention center, which has been criticized for its . Calls for closing the prison increased during the 2008 election between John McCain and Barack Obama. Obama in particular made the closure of the facility a central tenet of his campaign. But officials then that pledges to shut down the detention center would be difficult to fulfill.