Story highlights The role of Guantanamo Bay was a flashpoint of the Barack Obama's 2008 presidential election

Donald Trump, during his presidential campaign, made clear he wanted to reverse Obama's course

(CNN) Eleven Republican senators are calling on President Donald Trump to expand the use of the Guantanamo Bay prison facility.

The group, led by Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas, is also urging the new administration to suspend the review board set up by the Obama administration to approve prisoner transfers out of the facility.

"We want to express our support for maintaining and expanding the utilization of the detention facility during your administration by detaining current and future enemy combatants who pose a threat to our national security," the senators write.

The letter comes as Trump administration officials have been mulling over an executive order laying out how the new national security team plans to deal with the prison and its detainees. The details of that order have not been finalized, and several congressional aides say they have been mostly left out of the loop on the process of drafting the new order.

The role of Guantanamo Bay was a flashpoint of the 2008 presidential election, with Democrats -- and even some Republicans -- questioning its efficacy and whether the legal process put into place was adequate to ever actually produce convictions.

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