Only 93 Detainees Remain In Guantanamo Bay Following Release Of 10 Yemenis: Will Obama ‘Gitmo’ Close This Year?

Seven years ago, Barack Obama pledged to close down the military detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the legal deadzone where the U.S. has stored its most dangerous and most tortured terrorist suspects. Obama renewed calls to close Gitmo in his final State of the Union address on Tuesday calling the prison unnecessary, while falling short of embracing human rights groups’ arguments that indefinite detentions at the facility violate international law. On Thursday, the administration announced that it released 10 Yemeni detainees to live in Oman. That transfer reduces the Gitmo population to it's lowest level since 2002, with under 100 prisoners. Will Obama be able to close the controversial facility during his eighth and final year in office?

“He feels an obligation to the next president. He will fix this so that they don't have to be confronted with the same set of challenges,” White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough told Fox News Sunday last week, ahead of the State of the Union.

Obama administration officials are seeking to transfer more detainees later this month, according to VOA , a government news agency. Yet around 50 of the remaining prisoners cannot be shipped off to other countries, and are barred by congress from touching American soil, according to Time.

In February, the military is expected to submit a formal plan for how to close the prison.Obama will likely need an act of congress to close Guantanamo, a tough ask of the Republican-controlled legislature in an election year and a Lame-Duck session.

However, putting a plan on the table could court some centrist Republicans, including long-time anti-torture advocate Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

"I've asked for six and a half years for this administration to come forward with a plan - a plan that we could implement in order to close Guantanamo. They have never come forward with one and it would have to be approved by Congress," McCain told the AP in November.

McCain and Obama are unlikely to get support from GOP candidates who face an election increasingly focused on foreign policy.

"Barack Obama released terrorists from Guantanamo, and now they're plotting to attack us,” presidential candidate Marco Rubio says in a recent campaign ad, “He spies on Israel, and cut a deal with Iran.”