Obama Picks Illinois Prison to House Guantanamo Detainees

President Obama has chosen a nearly vacant maximum-security prison in northwestern Illinois, the Thomson Correctional Center, to house suspected terrorists now at the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba. The announcement will came Tuesday, with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Gov. Pat Quinn (D) meeting with officials at the White House in the afternoon to discuss the federal purchase of the facility.

"Closing the detention center at Guantanamo is essential to protecting our national security and helping our troops by removing a deadly recruiting tool from the hands of al-Qaeda. [Tuesday's] announcement is an important step forward as we work to achieve our national security objectives," an Obama administration official said in a statement.

The plan calls for the purchase of Thomson by the Bureau of Prisons, with a lease-back to the Defense Department for the portion of the facility -- estimated at 25 percent -- to be used for detainees. The administration started to openly consider Thomson in November, and the transfer of prisoners is months away, pending acquisition of and upgrades at the prison.

It will house between 50 and 100 inmates, members of the Illinois congressional delegation were told at a recent briefing with administration officials. Those detainees will, at the present time, neither be tried in U.S. military or civilian courts nor deported. Their status in indefinite detention will likely trigger further controversy, as Thomson assumes the role Guantanamo had played.

The rest of the prison will house federal inmates.

For some, Guantanamo has long been a symbol that stained the U.S. image, as many inmates have been held indefinitely and some were subjected to harsh interrogation techniques that critics considered torture. Obama pledged during his presidential campaign to shut the prison, and on his first day in office signed an executive order to close it by Jan. 22, 2010. But the administration has had difficulties reaching that goal, and Obama announced on Nov. 18 that the deadline would not be met.

There are about 200 detainees left at Guantanamo, a prison complex opened by former President Bush in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The new administration has been trying to gradually transfer detainees out of the facility. Some have been deported and five suspected terrorists will be tried in a federal court in New York City.

In Illinois, Durbin and Quinn have championed the federal purchase of Thomson, arguing that it will create jobs in a part of the state with a high unemployment rate. Local officials have been welcoming. The prison was completed in 2001 with beds for 1,600 maximum-security inmates, but never fully opened because of a state of Illinois cash shortfall. If the purchase of Thomson is completed, an extra security wall will be constructed and the prison reconfigured.

The most vocal opponents of the Thomson purchase plan have been Illinois Republican House members, with Rep. Mark Kirk, the front-running GOP Senate candidate, among them. After the congressional briefing earlier this month, Kirk said there were "many unanswered questions" and that he wanted a classified briefing in order to get "a number of key questions" answered about the detention plans.