Feds To Buy Thomson Prison
By Chuck Sudo in News on Oct 3, 2012 1:30PM
Gov. Pat Quinn and Sen. Dick Durbin announced the purchase of Thomson Correctional Center to the Federal Bureau of Prisons for $165 million Tuesday. The Department of Justice filed paperwork in the federal courthouse in Rockford to finalize the transfer, at the direction of President Barack Obama. Durbin, in a press release from the Illinois Government News Network, said he personally asked the President to intervene.
”The President knows the Quad Cities and the critical need for good-paying jobs in this part of the state. I want to thank Mayor Hebeler and the people of Thomson. This was his idea and they've patiently waited for over a decade for this day to come. This Mayor never gave up - I have the voice mails to prove it.”
The move bypasses the objections of longtime Virginia Congressman Frank Wolf, who long opposed the sale of Thomson because he didn’t trust the Obama Administration’s assurances the prison wouldn’t be used to house detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Wolf chairs the House Appropriations subcommittee which oversees the Bureau of Prisons.
At a Tuesday news conference announcing the purchase, Durbin reiterated the plan for Thomson was to use it to detain domestic criminals within the federal prison system and not to bring GITMO detainees onto American soil. House Speaker John Boehner blasted the end-around.
“A majority of the American people and a bipartisan majority in Congress oppose bringing the terrorists imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay into the United States,” Boehner said. “The unilateral decision to purchase the Thomson Prison even though Congress has repeatedly opposed the Obama administration’s effort to use taxpayer funds to do so — underscores the administration’s desire to move forward and bring these detainees to U.S. soil.”
With Wolf out of the way, Quinn and Durbin were content to highlight the benefits of the sale for Illinois. Durbin said in a statement, “this historic action will lead to the creation of hundreds of construction jobs and over 1,000 permanent jobs at this federal facility.” Quinn told the Sun-Times the money would help the state pay its bills. “We have bills to pay. We all know that.”
Thomson was built in 2001 as a state-of-the-art, maximum-security facility intended to hold the most severe inmates in the state prison system, but has been mostly vacant because the state couldn’t afford to staff the prison. The Bureau of Prisons’ operation of Thomson is estimated to generate $122 million in operating expenditures (including salaries), $19 million in labor income, and $61 million in local business sales annually.