Welcome to Military Families United

Detainee Issues—Guantanamo Bay

Military Families United (MFU) has been a leading voice on the future of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, since President Obama announced his intentions to close the detainee facility. America's military families have a vested interest in ensuring that the enemy combatants being held at Guantanamo are brought to justice, and that the sacrifices our loved ones made to capture these terrorists were not in vain. MFU believes bringing detainees to trial by military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay is the best way to achieve justice in a fair, safe and cost effective way. Until the President provides Congress and the American people with a clear, safe plan and effective policy regarding detainees and Guantanamo Bay, he should not be allowed to spend millions in taxpayer dollars to transfer these detainees for trial on U.S. soil. Guantanamo Bay is currently the most secure and effective detention, intelligence-gathering, and prosecution facility in the world and closing it should not be a decision made for public relations or political reasons.

Pending Legislation Addressing Detainee Issues

S-2977
Introduced by Sen. Lindsey Graham
HR-4556
Introduced by Rep. Frank Wolf

Issue: President Obama has requested homeland security funding in his FY2011 Budget to pay for the transfer and trials of detainees on U.S. soil. Unfortunately, neither President Obama or Attorney General Eric Holder have yet to answer critical questions about the process or plan for bringing Guantanamo Bay detainees to the United States for Article III Trials or for continued detention. Key questions such as access to civilian courts for habeas corpus petitions by detainees and access to classified intelligence during civilian trials, have not been mentioned, much less answered by the government.

Both S-2977 and HR-4556 prohibit any funds appropriated or made available to the Department of Justice (DOJ) from being used to commence or continue a prosecution in an Article III court of any individual suspected of involvement in the attacks on the United States and its citizens on September 11, 2001, who is not a citizen of the United States and is subject to the jurisdiction of a military commission.

Military Families United supports both bills and encourages you to send an email to your Congressman or Senator asking for support of this legislation. Please click here to urge your legislator to support these bills.

Expatriation of Terrorists

Pending Legislation Addressing Expatriation of Terrorists

S-3327
Introduced by Sen. Joseph Lieberman
HR-5237
Introduced by Rep. Jason Altmire

Issue: The attempted bombing of New York’s Times Square is the most recent in a series of planned attacks by Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) on American soil. As with the shootings at Fort Hood and the failed attempt to bring down a commercial jetliner on Christmas Day, the Times Square attempt was carried out by an American citizen radicalized by FTOs. Military Families United believes that U.S. nationals who join al-Qaeda or other FTOs, and all nationalized individuals who declare America to be enemy soil and take up arms with the goal of killing Americans, should have to forfeit their rights to American citizenship – just as they would if they had joined the armed forces of any nation with whom the United States was at war.

This legislation updates an existing federal statute (8 U.S.C. § 1481) by adding another category to the list of acts for which a U.S. national would lose his nationality – providing material support or resources to a FTO, as designated by the Secretary of State, or actively engaging in hostilities against the United States or its allies. This addition is of critical importance because the current federal statute does not cover FTOs due to the fact that those organizations are not considered “foreign states.”