41 prisoners remain at Gitmo as Obama leaves office
With Republicans controlling the House, many of Obama's promises have been rated Stalled or Broken.
During President Barack Obama's final days in office, the population at Guantánamo Bay prison shrunk again but he fell short of his promise to close the facility.
On Jan. 19, the day before Donald Trump's inauguration, Obama sent a two-page letter to Congress about the prison population.
"Of the nearly 800 detainees at one time held at the facility, today only 41 remain," Obama wrote.
Obama argued that terrorists use the prison as propaganda to recruit and that the expensive costs -- about $11 million to house each captive -- drain military resources.
He made his final plea to Congress to close the prison: "Guantanamo is contrary to our values and undermines our standing in the world, and it is long past time to end this chapter in our history."
When we wrote our previous update Dec. 12, the population stood at 59. The Obama administration worked to reduce it further in the final weeks of his presidency.
The largest reduction since that time was on Jan. 16 when the Arabian Sea nation of Oman said it had taken in 10 Guantánamo captives, according to the Miami Herald, which has tracked the prisoner population.
Obama reduced the prison population from 242 detainees when he first took office in 2009, but the prison remains open.
Trump tweeted in January that he wanted the White House to halt transfers, but the White House rejected that idea. We are tracking Trump's campaign promise to keep Gitmo open.
