The Guantánamo Bay Detention Center, also referred to as Gitmo, sits next to the US Guantánamo Bay Naval Station in southeastern Cuba. Existing structures were repurposed after 9/11 to hold "enemy combatants" in the War on Terror. Because the detention facilities were not on US soil, the Bush administration argued the detainees were not covered by the US Constitution. On June 12, 2008, the US Supreme Court ruled that detainees have the Constitutional right to challenge their detention. About 780 people have been held at Gitmo since 2002, with the peak population at 684 in June 2003.

On Nov. 18, 2009, President Obama signed an executive order to close Gitmo within a year. A year later, Obama announced the detention center had not yet closed because of challenges in relocating detainees. The Guantánamo Bay Detention Center was not closed and still held 41 or 42 detainees by the time Obama left office in Jan. 2017. President Trump vowed to keep the facility open to fight terrorism. 40 detainees remain in the facility.

Sources: Spencer Ackerman, "Obama to Leave Office with More Than 40 Detainees Still in Guantánamo Bay," theguardian.com, Jan. 18, 2017
CNN Library, "Guantanamo Bay Naval Station Fast Facts," cnn.com, Sep. 16, 2019
Andrei Scheinkman, et al., "The Guantanamo Docket," nytimes.com (accessed July 22, 2020)