Carol Rosenberg:

So, the first thing to understand is that Guantanamo started off and functions kind of like a POW site, a prisoner of war site.

There is not a presumption all of them are guilty of war crimes. The U.S. brought them here as POWs of this unusual war, saying they wanted to take them off the battlefield.

Then, among them, they found a certain number or they brought a certain number that they wanted to charge with war crimes. Best known probably are the five men accused of conspiring in the 9/11 attacks.

But the majority of them are men who we have come, who I have come to call the forever prisoners. They're indefinite detainees in this war in terror. People have called this the forever war because, in part, there is nobody on the other side to surrender. How do you end this war on terror?

So, these men, many of them, may be here the rest of their lives. And what's happened under President Trump is that the military recognized that this is no longer expeditionary or temporary detention. They're planning for enduring detention. They're planning for another 20 or so years of holding these men.

As you probably recall, President Obama said he wanted to close it, he wanted to move some of the men to the United States and hold them in either military or federal detention sites, depending on how they would be charged or held. And Congress blocked it.

The political will in the United States is to keep them here. So, under the Trump administration, the Pentagon is planning to hold them, if not forever, for the next 20 or so years.