Trump signs order to keep Guantanamo detention center open

WASHINGTON: U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he signed an order to keep open the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which his predecessor, Barack Obama, unsuccessfully tried to close.

“I just signed, prior to walking in, an order directing (Defense) Secretary (Jim) Mattis … to re-examine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay,” Trump said in his State of the Union speech.

He urged bitterly divided Republicans and Democrats to work toward compromises on immigration and infrastructure after a bruising year of partisan battles that centered on Trump’s leadership.

“Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve,” Trump said in his first State of the Union address, delivered in the chamber of the House of Representatives.

Trump used the speech, given annually by presidents to Congress, to try to overcome doubts about his presidency at a time when he is battling a probe into his campaign’s alleged ties with Russia and suffering low job approval ratings. The speech was short on details of his policy proposals.

While Trump called for bipartisanship, evidence of the deep divide between the parties was clear. Republican lawmakers cheered wildly at the president’s applause lines, while Democrats often sat in their seats silently.

Whether Trump would follow through on his appeal for bipartisan harmony was far from clear. Trump’s past attempts at a unifying message have been undermined by rancorous tweets and divisive statements that have angered Democrats and frequently annoyed lawmakers in his own Republican Party.

The unity plea will first be put to the test in his drive for a compromise on protecting 1.8 million “Dreamers” – people brought illegally to the country as children – who face a March 5 deadline on whether they can begin to be deported.

Trump said he was “extending an open hand” for an immigration deal and that he would provide Dreamers a pathway to citizenship over 10 to 12 years in exchange for funding for a border wall with Mexico and restrictions on legal immigration.

Trump called his plan a “down-the-middle compromise,” but some Democrats booed when he said he wanted to rein in “chain migration,” the ability of legal immigrants to bring a wide-ranging number of family members into the country.

“Let’s come together, set politics aside and finally get the job done,” Trump said.