The U.S. Defense Department is sending a team to Colorado to visit a state and federal prison facility in the area and assess if the facilities can house detainees from the military prison at Guantanamo bay, Cuba.
The Pentagon has notified Congress and is eyeing the federal Bureau of Prisons complex in Florence and a nearby state penitentiary that is nearly empty. Assessment includes factors such as construction costs and other changes that would be needed to house the prisoners from Cuba. Military commission trials will also be conducted.
Other facilities considered by the Pentagon are the Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, S.C., Fox News reported.
President Obama has long expressed his desire to close the Guantanamo prison, which holds 114 accused terrorists and accomplices, and the administration is now trying to transfer 50 of those inmates to other countries, according to USA Today.
Representative Doug Lamborn, a Republican whose district includes the federal prison complex, isn't pleased by the idea. "It is outrageous and unacceptable for President Obama to waste time and taxpayer dollars on a dangerous fantasy that will go nowhere. The people of Colorado do not want the world's worst terrorists housed in our own backyard," Lamborn said in a statement, The New York Times reported.
