Obama officials consider if Michigan is the new Gitmo
Guantánamo may be moving to Standish, Michigan.
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The Associated Press reports: Obama administration officials are touring a maximum-security prison 145 miles northwest of Detroit today. The Standish Maxium Correctional Facility is being considered as a potential destination for terror suspects currently held in Guantánamo Bay.
Despite “not in my backyard” resistance, Obama still plans to close Gitmo by early 2010.
The Standish facility is currently on the chopping block because of Michigan state budget cuts, despite the fact that it is Arenac County’s largest employer in a region with a crippling 17.3 percent unemployment rate. States like Pennsylvania and California are already in talks with Michigan officials about paying to ship some of their inmates in Standish.
Michigan’s governor, Jennifer Granholm, said she’d rather accept those prisoners from other states than Gitmo detainees, and the local pressure to save the prison is mounting.
White House officials are also eyeing the military penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas as an alternative location for Gitmo detainees.