Gov. Pat Quinn visited the Quad-Cities Sunday with Sen. Richard Durbin and Thomson officials to discuss the process.

Additional details to follow...

EARLIER:

The federal government is considering housing detainees from Guantanamo Bay in an underused prison north of the Quad-Cities.

President Barack Obama's administration is looking at purchasing Thomson Correctional Center, located in Carroll County, from Illinois, according to information provided by an administration official in an e-mail.

Under the proposal, the facility would mainly hold domestic federal inmates, but would also house a "limited number" of prisoners captured during U.S. anti-terrorism operations and who are now being held at America's military base in Cuba.

"The administration has been evaluating a number of state and federal maximum-security facilities to house detainees," the e-mail states. "Thomson has emerged as a leading option for the administration."

Federal prisons are housing about 340 inmates "linked to domestic or international terrorism," the e-mail said. Thirty-five of those inmates are in Illinois.

"Even given that history, the administration is prepared to take extra security precautions with the Thomson facility," the e-mail said.

The prison is in the community of Thomson, which is about 40 miles up the Mississippi River from the Quad-Cities and 150 miles west of Chicago.

An IDOC spokeswoman was not available for comment on this story Saturday.

The federal proposal has drawn both positive and negative reactions from member's of Illinois' federal delegation.

Sen. Dick Durbin's office released a statement Saturday stating the senator was pleased with the idea.

"This move will have a significant positive impact on the local economy," Sen. Durbin, a Democrat, said in the release.

"Preliminary estimates show it generating more than 3,000 jobs and potentially injecting more than $1 billion into the local economy over the first four years of operation."

Sen. Durbin's release also cited the statistics of how many detainees are already held in the U.S. and in Illinois.

"To those who say U.S. prisons cannot safely hold high-risk terror suspects, I say look at the facts," he said in the release.

Fewer than 100 detainees would be housed at Thomson, according to the Durbin release.

The prison is in the district of U.S. Rep. Don Manzullo, R-Egan. His office released a statement against the idea of holding detainees at Thomson, though Rep. Manzullo supports housing the other federal inmates.

The statement described the detainees at Guantanamo as "dangerous and brutal killers."

"I adamantly oppose this plan to bring the terrorists to northwestern Illinois, where they could one day be released into our communities," Rep. Manzullo said in the statement. "Gitmo is set up to house these dangerous terrorists, and they should stay there."

Phil Hare, D-Rock Island, also released a statement saying that federal and state officials must guarantee the safety of residents in the area around Thomson.

"The prospects of thousands of additional good-paying jobs and much needed revenue for our state are factors we should consider, but safety must be the primary consideration," Rep. Hare said in the statement.

Robert Reed, a spokesman for Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, declined to comment on the proposal Saturday, referring questions to the federal government.

He said the governor, along with Sen. Durbin, will be releasing further details about Thomson in news conferences on Sunday.

Gov. Quinn's office did release a statement confirming the federal government's interest in Thomson and saying that overcrowding in federal prisons was one of the reasons for the proposal.

But the state release did not provide further details on potential uses for the facility.

The statement did say that the governor's first priority is public safety and security, and that those topics would "definitely be part of any future discussions with federal prison authorities regarding Thomson."