MS. PERINO: Sure. There has been ongoing discussion in the administration about dealing with detainees at Guantanamo Bay for quite some time, but more intensively, certainly, since the Supreme Court decision.

Let me take you back. A couple of years ago the Supreme Court said that the United States, both the executive branch and the legislative branch, needed to work together to come up with a way to -- a law that would allow detainees to challenge their detentions in our judicial system. The Military Commissions Act was passed, amongst other laws. We took that action and then just recently -- I think it was about three or four weeks ago -- the Supreme Court decided against the Congress and the executive branch and said, actually, no, that's not good enough. And for the first time in American history, the Supreme Court afforded constitutional rights to enemy combatants. And there's a lot of unanswered questions that come from that decision.

And so after the President learned of the decision -- we were in Rome, and he said that he disagreed with the decision, but the Supreme Court is the law of the land and that we would work to understand the consequences, the ramifications and implications of this law. That's what we're doing right now. So there is a lot of smart lawyers working on this issue, and I think that we're in unchartered territory when it comes to understanding what all we're going to do when it comes to detainees. It should come as no surprise to anybody that here at the White House we're coordinating amongst the interagency to discuss all of this.

And I think that -- one of the things that I would just remind you of is that the Department of Defense has been working for years to try to get many of these enemy combatants repatriated, and in fact we've gotten hundreds repatriated back to their country where they would be held securely. But some detainees have been released, and some have returned to the battlefield, and some have even become suicide bombers. And we have to be really careful about what we're going to do with these detainees.

One of the possible consequences of this decision is that it is possible that some of these detainees, after challenging their detention in court, could be released into the United States. And then you have further complication when it comes to our immigration laws, and how long you can hold a detainee, which right now under our immigration laws is for six months.

And so there's a lot of complicated issues that go into this decision, and we are working hard, but I will tell you there's no imminent decision that's going to be announced from the White House.

seen at 09:00, 3 July in Whitehouse Press Briefings. Email this to a friend.
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