Trump announces he has signed an order to keep Guantanamo Bay detention center open: ‘Terrorists are not merely criminals’. The order reverses former president Obama's directive aimed at shuttering the camp that Obama called a symbol of American human rights abuses during wartime. Still, Trump's directive doesn't change the operation of the Cuba military prison, first opened in 2002. Forty-one prisoners are still held there, down from a high of nearly 800. While Trump said the move fulfills a campaign promise, Trump in his first year chose to deal with terror suspects much like the Obama administration: prosecuting them in civilian courts. Ref. USAToday.