And now president Biden's administration is taking it up.

Closing Guantanamo Bay on Friday, the White House said it is launching a formal review of the U.

S military prison in Cuba with the goal of closing it by the time he leaves office.

White House Press secretary Jen Psaki well Guantanamo Bay be closed by the time President Biden liaison.

Well, that certainly is our goal and our intention.

So we are undertaking an NSC process, which is how it should work, um, through that to work with the interagency interagency, I should say, to assess the current state of play that the Biden administration has we've inherited from the previous administration.

Opened under President George W.

Bush and set up to House foreign suspects following the September 11th attacks, the offshore jail came to symbolize the excesses of the U.

S.

War on terror because of the harsh interrogation methods that critics say amounted to torture, the prison's population grew to a peak of about 800 inmates before it started to shrink.

Former President Obama whittled down the number further, but his effort to close the prison was stymied largely by Republican opposition in Congress.

Former President Trump kept the prison open during his four years in the White House.

Now 40 prisoners remain most held for nearly two decades without being charged or tried to.

People familiar with the matter told Reuters that AIDS involved in internal discussions are considering an executive action to be signed by Biden in coming weeks or months, signaling a new effort to remove what human rights advocates have called a stain on America's global image.

And people familiar with the matter say a revived Guantanamo strategy is expected to focus initially on further decreasing the number of prisoners by repatriating them or finding other countries to accept them.

But even with his own Democratic Party now controlling Congress, their majorities air so slim that Biden would face a tough challenge securing legislative changes because some Democrats might also oppose them.