Prison may house Gitmo prisoners
CHICAGO – As the Obama administration considers a plan to move Guantanamo Bay detainees to prisons on U.S. soil, including possible sites in Illinois and Michigan, proponents and critics are spinning the facts.
The nearly vacant Thomson Correctional Center in the western Illinois farming town of Thomson is the latest potential candidate being evaluated to hold detainees after President Obama promised to close the military-run detention center in Cuba.
Here is a look at some claims about security, economic impact and prison visitors if Guantanamo Bay detainees are locked up in the U.S.
CLAIMS: Critics, including Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk and several other Congress members from Illinois, contend moving Guantanamo prisoners there would make the state – with its signature Chicago skyscrapers – a terrorist target.
FACTS: Convicted terrorists are held in U.S. prisons. Federal Bureau of Prisons director Harley Lappin said more than 340 international and domestic terrorists were incarcerated.
Lappin said the bureau worked with federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to assess threats.
CLAIMS: Detainees moved from Guantanamo Bay would be able to recruit other inmates to terrorism if held in a U.S. prison.
FACTS: Detainees would be overseen by the military and would not mingle with other federal inmates, Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Felicia Ponce said.
CLAIMS: Federal prisoners are allowed visitors so al-Qaida followers and family members would visit detainees.
FACTS: The Department of Defense does not allow detainees to have visitors. Phil Carter, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee policy, said detainees’ only visitors at Guantanamo Bay were attorneys, the Red Cross and diplomatic and law enforcement personnel.
CLAIMS: Bringing Guantanamo detainees to Illinois or Michigan would bring jobs to small prison towns.
Durbin and Gov. Pat Quinn say selling the prison to the federal government would generate about 3,000 jobs both at the facility and indirectly in the community.
FACTS: An economist says the reality probably is somewhere between predictions floated by supporters and critics.
University of Chicago economist Allen Sanderson said job creation numbers “tend to be gross overestimates.”
“You should take them with more than one grain of salt although it’s not recommended by a doctor,” Sanderson joked.
