WASHINGTON (CN) - The Defense Department will be relocating designated detainees from the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base to the Thomson Correctional Center, in Illinois.
President Obama has ordered the Attorney General to acquire and activate the center as a high security, maximum occupancy federal prison and to provide part of the facility to the detainees.
The number of Guantanamo Bay detainees to be housed at the new facility has not been disclosed, but previous press reports estimate that about 100 of them would come to Thomson.
The Thomson facility has eight maximum security cellhouses with a total of 1,600 cells, some of which will be used to ease overcrowding at other federal prisons. It also has a minimum security unit with 200 beds, which is the only part of the facility currently in use.
The facility is expected to receive security up-grades to make it a supermax prison.
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