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Durbin to Republicans: ‘You ought to have a little more respect’ for American corrections officers.

On the Senate floor last night, Sen. Robert Bennett (R-UT) said that American prison guards would “have no idea what they’re getting into” if Guantanamo detainees were transferred to U.S. prisons. Speaking today, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) slammed the GOP, saying his Republican colleagues should have “a little more respect” for the professionalism of American prison guards:

DURBIN: Some of my Republican colleagues argue that Guantanamo is the only appropriate place to hold the detainees and they said, and I quote, “We don’t have a facility that could handle this in the United States,” end of quote. And American prison guards, they went on to say, quote, “have no idea what they’re getting into,” close quote. Well, I would just say to my colleagues who made those statements, you ought to take a look at some of our security facilities in the United States, and you ought to have a little more respect for the men and women who are corrections officers and put their lives on the line every single day to keep us safe and to make sure that those who are dangerous are detained and incarcerated. The reality is that we’re holding some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world right now in our federal prisons, including the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the shoe bomber, the Unibomber, and many others.

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