Rep. Mark Sanford Breaks GOP Ranks, Votes for Gitmo Shutdown

Rep. Mark Sanford broke ranks with the GOP majority as he joined Democrats in their move to shut the Guantánamo Bay detention center in Cuba.

"Indefinite detention is not consistent with the values that America was based on," Sanford, a South Carolina Republican, said in an interview with McClatchy DC published in The Miami Herald.

"I think if you look at the military tribunals . . . there was finality to the process: 'We find you guilty in military tribunal, we'll take you out back and shoot you, or we'll let you go.' It was not, 'We're going to hold you for the next 40 years.'"

A Republican majority defeated the proposal to shut Gitmo on Wednesday. If it had passed, the proposal would have paved the way for some prisoners to be transferred to detention centers in the United States.

Sanford was joined by two other Republicans — Reps. John Duncan of Tennessee and Justin Amash of Michigan — in voting for the shutdown.

Proponents of the Gitmo closing argue that prisoners there — a number of them suspected terrorists — are held for years without being formally charged.

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