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President Must Follow Laws He Signed Prohibiting Transfer of Gitmo Terrorists to U.S.

February 24, 2016

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor today regarding the President’s announcement on the secure terrorist-detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba:

“President Obama has left the American people to wait many years for a serious plan — one that poses no additional risk to our nation or our armed forces, for instance — in pursuit of his desire to close the secure detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.

“Americans have been waiting seven long years to find out what that serious plan might look like.

“They’re still waiting today.

“What the President sent to Congress yesterday isn’t a plan. It’s more of a research project if anything. It does call on Congress to act though.

“Turns out, we already have.

“Congress has repeatedly voted to enact clear bipartisan prohibitions on the very thing the President is again calling for: the transfer of Guantanamo Bay terrorists into our local communities.

“We’ve enacted bipartisan prohibitions in Congresses with split party control.

“We’ve enacted bipartisan prohibitions in Congresses with massive, overwhelming Democratic majorities.

“Just a couple months ago, Members of Congress in both parties expressed themselves clearly once again — not once but twice, and on an overwhelming bipartisan basis.

“President Obama signed these bipartisan prohibitions into law too.

“So let’s not pretend there is even the faintest of pretenses for some ‘pen and phone’ gambit here.

“Congress has acted: clearly, repeatedly, and on a bipartisan basis.

“The President now has a duty to follow the laws that he himself signed.

“It shouldn’t be that hard when you consider his admonition yesterday about ‘upholding the highest standards of rule of law’ in our country. ‘As Americans,’ he said, ‘we pride ourselves on being a beacon to other nations, a model of the rule of law.’

“That’s interesting in light of a recent GAO ruling that the Administration’s detainee swap of Taliban prisoners for Bowe Berghdahl violated the law. It’s especially interesting in light of the President’s continuing refusal to rule out breaking the law if he doesn’t get his way on Guantanamo.

“President Obama’s own Attorney General says he can’t unilaterally do that.

“President Obama’s own Defense Secretary says he can’t unilaterally do that.

“President Obama’s own top military officer says he can’t unilaterally do that.

“In the words of one of our Democratic colleagues, ‘He’s going to have to comply with the legal restrictions.’

“Simple as that.

“Breaking the law as a way to supposedly uphold the rule of law is just as absurd as it sounds. It’s time the President finally ruled that option out categorically. And then, he should finally move on from a years-old campaign promise and focus on the real problems that need solving today.

“My own hope is that the commander-in-chief will not put his own chain of command in the position of having to carry out an unlawful direct order.

“But look: Closing Guantanamo and transferring terrorists to the United States didn’t make sense in 2008 and it makes even less sense today. We are a nation at war.

“The Administration’s efforts to ‘contain’ ISIL thus far have not succeeded.

“The next President may very well want to pursue operations that target, capture, detain, and interrogate terrorists, because that’s how terrorist networks are defeated.

“Why would we take that option away from the next commander-in-chief now?

“And let’s be clear.

“The two options on the table are not keeping Guantanamo open or closing it, but keeping Guantanamo terrorists at Guantanamo or moving them to some ‘Guantanamo North’ based in a U.S. community.

“Changing the detention center's ZIP code is not a solution. It’s not even serious.

“The fact that the President missed a deadline for submitting a plan to defeat ISIL last week, presumably because he was too busy working on this ancient campaign promise, is just completely unacceptable.

“Some of the most senior national security officials within President Obama’s own administration are already working to better position the next President for the national security challenges we will face in 2017.

“It’s time President Obama finally joined them, and us, in the serious work of keeping Americans safe in a dangerous world.”

Grassley, McConnell Bill Would Help Foster Children Affected by Opioids, Methamphetamine, Other Substance Abuse

February 23, 2016

WASHINGTON – Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky today introduced legislation to re-authorize a program to help children who are in foster care or at risk of such placement because of parental abuse of methamphetamine or another substance.  The new bill ensures that opioid abuse is also a key focus of the grants given to child welfare agencies to promote services to children and families under the measure.

The Grassley-McConnell bill, the Protecting Families Affected by Substance Abuse Act, would reauthorize for five years the Regional Partnership Grants that were created in 2006 under Grassley’s Finance Committee chairmanship and included as part of the Promoting Safe and Stable Families Act.  Congress reauthorized the grants in 2011.  While the original intent of the 2006 grants was to address methamphetamine abuse, the scope expanded to other substances as new problems emerged.   Opioid addiction is a key focus of the new bill, as we have seen the havoc prescription painkillers and heroin continue to have on families and communities around the nation. 

The grants support regional partnerships for services including early intervention and preventive services; child and family counseling; mental health services; parenting skills training; and replication of successful models for providing family-based, comprehensive long-term substance abuse treatment services. 

“Many of the kids in foster care are there because of substance abuse at home,” Senator Grassley said.  “Families are torn apart because of substance abuse, and parents can benefit from services to get them off of drug abuse and back to caring for their children.  Children benefit from being reunited with their family members and learning how to break the cycle of addiction that can strike multiple generations of the same family.  This program is meant to prevent the substance abuse and dissolution of families that have a very great cost to society and state and federal treasuries over time.”

“I applaud all that Kentucky’s child welfare and substance abuse officials are doing to help the children of families struggling with addiction,” Senator McConnell said. “We must do all we can to ensure children grow up in safe, stable, and loving families, which can often mean helping parents break the cycle of addiction that allows for the safe reunification of families, rather than forcing children into a costly foster care system.  That is just what this grant program aims to achieve. Kentucky has made use of these grants in a number of ways, and it is important this progress continues as we work together to address the ramifications of addiction, largely stemming from abuse of prescription painkillers and heroin, on families in the Commonwealth.  I look forward to working with Senator Grassley to advance this critical legislation.”

In 2015, close to 8,000 children were living in Kentucky’s foster care system, and nearly 90 percent of children who enter its system do so as a result of parental neglect, which often stems from substance abuse issues.

Eligible grantees under the senators’ bill include nonprofit and for-profit child welfare service providers, community health service and community mental health providers, local law enforcement agencies, judges and court personnel, juvenile justice officials, school officials, state child welfare or substance abuse agencies, and tribal welfare agencies.  Information on current grantees can be found here.

According to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, in a national study, caseworkers investigating allegations of abuse or neglect noted that of primary caregivers from whom children were removed, 37 percent were actively abusing drugs and 29 percent were actively abusing alcohol. The percentage of children who remain in care due to issues related to substance abuse is believed to be even larger because, among other reasons, accessing and successfully completing treatment services is often time-consuming, and children may not be able to safely return to their homes until treatment is successfully completed.

Grassley is founder and co-chair of the Caucus on Foster Youth, chairman of the Caucus on International Narcotics Control and chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

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Bipartisan Prohibition Remains Against President Sending Guantanamo Terrorists to U.S.

February 23, 2016

‘Today we received the descriptions of where the President would like to detain terrorists within the United States…his Attorney General recently confirmed that it is illegal to transfer any of these terrorists into the U.S…We will review President Obama’s plan but since it includes bringing dangerous terrorists to facilities in U.S. communities, he knows that the bipartisan will of Congress has already been expressed against that proposal.’

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor today regarding the secure detention facility in Guantanamo:

“We understand that, in just a few minutes, the President is set to make an announcement on the secure facility in Guantanamo.

“In light of that, colleagues should consider the following things we’ve heard in recent weeks.

  • General Dunford has spoken of the need for our military to take more aggressive action against the ISIL group that’s operating within Libya.
  • General Campbell has spoken of the need to retain a sizeable-enough force in Afghanistan to accomplish the dual missions of both conducting counterterrorism operations and training and advising the Afghan security forces.
  • Defense Secretary Ash Carter has issued a budget request that seeks funding for the weapons systems and programs we’ll need to balance against the regional ambitions of China and Russia.

“In other words, some of the most senior national security officials within this administration are already working to better position the next President for the national security challenges that we will face in 2017. And yet, President Obama seems to remain captured on one matter by a campaign promise he made in 2008: his ill-considered crusade to close the secure detention facility in Guantanamo.

“Today we received the descriptions of where the President would like to detain terrorists within the United States — though not any actual proposed locations — despite the fact that it would be illegal under current law to transfer foreign terrorist at Guantanamo into the United States. This isn’t a case where the President can even try to justify the use of some ‘pen and phone strategy’ by claiming that Congress failed to act. To the contrary, Congress acted over and over again in a bipartisan way to reject the President’s desire to transfer dangerous terrorists to communities in the United States.

“The President signed all of these prohibitions and his Attorney General recently confirmed that it is illegal to transfer any of these terrorists into the U.S.

“We will review President Obama’s plan but since it includes bringing dangerous terrorists to facilities in U.S. communities, he knows that the bipartisan will of Congress has already been expressed against that proposal.”

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