Guantanamo Bay should be closed

Former President Barack Obama promised to close the prison on the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay nearly 12 years ago, but the notorious facility that will forever be linked to the fight against terrorism — and the stain on American justice values — still has 40 detainees. President Joe Biden said he will begin a review process to finally close the prison, a move that is long overdue.

The prison opened in January 2002 and 780 men suspected of having ties to the Taliban and al-Qaida have been held there over the years, although they never were charged with a crime. For a nation that prides itself on following the rule of law, Guantanamo represents the antithesis of protection under the law as none of the detainees were afforded due process of the American legal system.

There were no court hearings for those held to defend themselves and argue against their imprisonment. Instead, there was documented evidence of torture and inhumane conditions that sparked international criticism and outrage from civil liberties groups.

Under President George W. Bush, there were efforts to prosecute some for war crimes in tribunals known as military commissions, and 532 prisoners were also released.

Mr. Obama had 197 detainees repatriated or resettled in other countries and proposed plans to prosecute and imprison the remaining men in the U.S. — under the U.S. legal system. But he ran into fierce political opposition. Congress, in 2015, passed the National Defense Authorization Act, the annual bill that sets the Pentagon budget, and included a provision barring the transfer of Guantanamo prisoners to the United States.

That restriction has not been lifted.

It seems that as long as the prisoners are not on U.S. soil, they are not entitled to the American guarantee of due process. Last August, a federal appeals court ruled that “the Due Process Clause may not be invoked by aliens without property or presence in the sovereign territory of the United States.” This defines the malicious legal loophole.

Mr. Biden will not have an easy time getting approval to close the Guantanamo facility. There are many members of Congress opposed to putting the remaining Guantanamo prisoners in U.S. prison facilities, even for the time it would take to determine whether these prisoners ever committed a crime.

Those interested in justice should be outraged. Those interested in economics should be stunned. There is a staggering cost to continuing the operation at Guantanamo Bay. Estimates place the price per prisoner at about $13 million per year; the total spent in 2016 exceeded $445 million. Both Mr. Obama and his successor, former President Donald Trump, acknowledged that it was an outrageous public expenditure.

Of the 40 remaining prisoners, 10 are facing military commission tribunals, but their cases have been tied up in pretrial proceedings for years. At least five detainees had been recommended for transfer to their home countries by the Obama-era Periodic Review Board.

Mr. Biden should move quickly to complete the task promised more than a decade ago — while he was vice president — and close the Guantanamo prison. It has for too long been a black mark on the American legal system and an insult to basic human rights.