Guantanamo: Obama Sends Plan to Close Controversial Detention Facility to Congress

President Barack Obama on Tuesday presented a long-awaited plan to Congress to shut down the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, insisting that keeping the prison open is "contrary to our values."

"It's been clear that the detention center at Guantanamo Bay does not advance our national security," Obama said from the Roosevelt Room at the White House. "It undermines it."

There are currently 35 detainees eligible for transfer and the plan calls for an accelerated review of remaining detainees to determine whether they pose a threat — and, if not, if they should be eligible for transfer.

"Keeping this facility open is contrary to our values," Obama said. "It undermines our standing in the world. It is viewed as a stain on our broader record of upholding the highest standards of rule of law."

Obama is already facing pushback from Republicans in Congress. Both chambers have repeatedly passed legislation banning any effort to move detainees to the US.

"President Obama seems to be captured on one matter by one campaign promise he made in 2008," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said on the Senate floor on Tuesday, NBC News reported.

"This isn't even a case where the president can use some kind of pen and phone strategy by claiming the Congress refused to act," McConnell said.

Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, chairman of House Armed Services Committee, has said his panel would hold a hearing on a closure plan. But he sent a letter to Obama warning that Congress has made clear what details must be included in any plan and that anything less than that would be unacceptable.

Obama said politics has complicated an issue which once had bipartisan agreement.

"When I first ran for president, it was widely recognized the facility needed to close," Obama said, adding that former president George W. Bush and former Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., once backed closure.