STANDISH, Michigan -- Federal and state officials visited a maximum-security prison in rural Michigan on Thursday to begin assessing its suitability to house Guantánamo Bay detainees.

About a dozen state officials were joined by 18 representatives from the Defense, Justice and Homeland Security departments and the Bureau of Prisons on the tour of the lockup in Standish, said Russ Marlan, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections.

The Standish prison and a military penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, are being considered to house the detainees if the prison at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba is closed by 2010, as ordered by President Barack Obama.

The Guantánamo Bay facility houses 229 foreign men held there for years, most as suspected al Qaeda, Taliban and foreign fighters.

Wednesday's was a preliminary survey, and federal officials had not proposed transferring detainees to Standish, Marlan said.

``The visit to Standish is to do a preliminary site survey. No final decisions have been made,'' White House press secretary Robert Gibbs in Washington said about the survey.

The region around Standish is hurting economically, with an unemployment rate of more than 17 percent, and some residents welcome bringing in the detainees if it will prevent closing down the prison, which with about 340 workers is the area's largest employer.

``Let 'em come. This community is hurting enough,'' Gloria Watson, 71, said while lunching in a downtown restaurant.

The terrorism suspects would be no more dangerous than other criminals who have been held in the prison throughout its 20-year history, said Watson, the pastor of a Presbyterian church in nearby Twining. ``I just wish people would stop running scared.''

Others fear bringing the Guantánamo detainees to Standish would make the town a target.

``The problem I have is, you almost are putting a bulls-eye on the whole entire area. There are just too many things that could go wrong,'' said Tom Kerrins, the chief steward for the Michigan Corrections Organization, the union representing prison workers in Standish.

Kerrins, 49, said the union opposes bringing the Guantánamo captives to Standish in part because it doubts the jobs of watching over them would go to the state officers working there now and would instead go to federal officers.

``They're still going to kick us down the road. They're going to use their own people,'' the Gladwin resident said Thursday outside the prison.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said Thursday that he would ask the departments of Defense and Justice to lead a delegation to visit Guantánamo Bay ``to better understand the special circumstances and the challenges that these detainees present by moving them to Michigan.''

Hoekstra, who is running for Michigan governor in 2010, is opposed to moving the prisoners to the state.

``Allowing state and local officials to see firsthand these detainees and Guantánamo Bay is necessary for them to understand the challenges and risks,'' he said in a statement.

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