Submit a Letter to the Editor (LTE):
Close Guantánamo
January 11, 2025 marks the 23rd anniversary of the day that the first detainees arrived at the prison in Guantanamo Bay. Please help NRCAT close the prison at Guantanamo Bay by submitting a letter-to-the-editor of your local newspaper. Here's how:
- Read our LTE tips.
- Use our talking points (below) to help you craft your LTE.
- Please inform us when you submit your letter.
TALKING POINTS (Updated Dec 2024)
Twenty-three years ago, our country opened a prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to hold suspected terrorists outside of the protections of the law. The U.S. government tortured many of the people held there.
There are 27 men still held at Guantanamo. Most of them have never been charged with a crime. Instead they are held in indefinite detention without trial.
While he was on the campaign trail, President Biden promised to close the detention center in Guantanamo. In his final weeks in office, it’s time for him to fulfill that promise.
The prison at Guantanamo costs the U.S. taxpayer over half a billion dollars per year – half a billion dollars to hold 27 people! That’s about 16 million dollars per prisoner per year – making Guantanamo the most expensive, least efficient prison on the planet.
Indefinite detention without trial is wrong. It is also un-American.
President Bush and President Obama both agreed - we should close Guantanamo. Even President Trump never sent any new prisoners to Guantanamo – probably because it costs so much!
President Biden has a responsibility to end indefinite detention without trial, and end the waste of taxpayer dollars by closing Guantanamo.
Our government tortured many of the prisoners in Guantanamo and even today it has failed to charge or try most of them for any crime. It is time to put an end to this mistake. It is time to close Guantanamo.
As a person of faith, I join with the National Religious Campaign Against Torture in calling for the closure of this symbol of torture, which endures as a legacy of a period in which our government put its fears ahead of our values.
