Guantanamo Bay detainees may find a new home in Berkeley according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The City Council plans to vote next Tuesday on a resolution to invite some of the detainees to live in Berkeley. Any detainee would have to have been cleared of wrongdoing before receiving an invite.
Berkeley is talking about inviting two of the 38 detainees already cleared. One is Russian ballet dancer Ravil Mingazov. The other is Djamel Ameziane, an Algerian who was a top-rated chef in Austria. The Center for Constitutional Rights says neither man was charged with a crime and both were tortured at Guantanamo Bay.
The two men would be invited to move to Berkeley and live with a local family. They would get help from nonprofits so they could find work and integrate into life in the Bay Area. No money from the city's general fund will be used.
The plan could go against federal law. The Ike Skelton National Defense Authorization Act of 2011 prohibits the U.S. from funding the relocation of cleared detainees.
