If Rhode Island were offering to hold them in its own State prison system, MA & CT wouldn’t have a say in the holding of prisoners, although they could maybe ma

If Rhode Island were offering to hold them in its own State prison system, MA & CT wouldn’t have a say in the holding of prisoners, although they could maybe make the transfer messy. DC is not a separate sovereign from the Federal government, the DC government exists as an administrative convenience for Congress in the guise of self-government; which is to say the interests of DC and the White House are legally subordinate to the interests of the Senators and Representatives of the 50 States. The Federal Prison system like all aspects of the Federal government are subject to Senatorial review and while technically you only need enough votes, not necessarily the home Senators approval, the Senate does like to remain collegial and so there’s some things they don’t do unto each other when there’s a Presidential agenda to hold up instead, like at the time: Obama’s. Every Federal penitentiary is in some Senator’s State, and given how controversial it was to put militant combatants anywhere near, let alone through the United States criminal justice system, it’s not happening. Technically, if Congress wanted to house foreign terrorists in the DC city jail, there wouldn’t be anything that could legally hold up an Act of Congress to do so. They’re not motivated nor interested enough to do so, and a city jail isn’t the best place when there’s a Federal Supermax over in Colorado and Guantanamo Bay over in Cuba. It’s not that legally we can’t, it’s just whatever political benefits there are to it are outweighed by political risks to individual members of Congress. The prisoner population of Gitmo is a problem nobody wants, and keeping them there is as good a reason as any to maintain sovereignty in the area in the face of a hostile foreign government.