The Washington Post’s Peter Slevin and Peter Finn report that it is likely the Obama administration will turn Thomson Correctional Center in Thomson, Illinois into a federal prison by “late winter,” enabling the housing of Guantanamo detainees. As my piece this weekend reported, the once hysterical denunciations from the Illinois GOP have been toned down: no lawmaker speaks anymore about prisoners escaping. Instead, Republicans will just ask Congress and/or the Justice Dept. to produce a report on national security. And maybe some Republicans, like Rep. Mark Kirk who is running for the U.S. Senate, will use detainee re-settlement as an anti-Obama campaign issue.

But it looks like the Pentagon will route dozens of Guantanamo detainees to rural Illinois. What happens to them then — indefinite detention? military commission trial? — is not known.

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