STANDISH, Mich. (AP) | Federal and state officials visited a maximum-security prison in rural Michigan on Thursday to begin assessing its suitability to house Guantanamo Bay terrorism-suspect detainees.
About a dozen state officials were joined by 18 representatives from the Defense, Justice and Homeland Security departments and the Bureau of Prisons on the tour of the lockup in Standish, said Russ Marlan, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections.
The prison in Standish, 145 miles north of Detroit, and a military penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., are being considered to house the 229 suspected al Qaeda, Taliban and foreign fighters currently at the prison at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, if it is closed by 2010 as President Obama has ordered.
Wednesday’s was a preliminary survey, and federal officials had not proposed transferring detainees to Standish, Mr. Marlan said.
“The visit to Standish is to do a preliminary site survey. No final decisions have been made,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs in Washington said about the survey.
The region around Standish is hurting economically, with an unemployment rate of more than 17 percent, and some residents welcome bringing in the detainees if it will prevent closing down the prison, which with about 340 workers is the area’s largest employer.
“Let ’em come. This community is hurting enough,” Gloria Watson, 71, said while lunching in a downtown restaurant.
The terrorism suspects would be no more dangerous than other criminals who have been held in the prison throughout its 20-year history, said Ms. Watson, the pastor of a Presbyterian church in nearby Twining. “I just wish people would stop running scared.”
Others fear bringing the Guantanamo detainees to Standish would make the town a target.
“The problem I have is, you almost are putting a bulls-eye on the whole, entire area. There are just too many things that could go wrong,” said Tom Kerrins, 49, the chief steward for the Michigan Corrections Organization, the union representing prison workers in Standish.
Mr. Kerrins said the union opposes sending the Gitmo prisoners to Standish, in part because it doubts the jobs of watching over them would go to the state officers working there now and would instead go to federal officers.
“They’re still going to kick us down the road. They’re going to use their own people,” the Gladwin resident said Thursday outside the prison.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the senior Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said Thursday he would ask the departments of Defense and Justice to lead a delegation to visit Guantanamo Bay “to better understand the special circumstances and the challenges that these detainees present by moving them to Michigan.”
Mr. Hoekstra, who is running for Michigan governor in 2010, is opposed to moving the prisoners to the state. “Allowing state and local officials to see firsthand these detainees and Guantanamo Bay is necessary for them to understand the challenges and risks,” he said.
Kansas’ two Republican senators, Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts, oppose proposals to move detainees to Fort Leavenworth, and have held up the nomination of New York Republican Rep. John M. McHugh for Army secretary until they receive more information from the Obama administration about the possible Leavenworth choice.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, New York Democrat, called Thursday on her Kansas colleagues to relent, saying it’s in the best interest of the Army and the nation to swiftly allow the nomination to move forward.
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