By Pamela Gentry, Senior Political Analyst

May 21, 2009 – President Barack Obama will outline his plans to deal with closing the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba today with the hope of avoiding any set-backs to keeping his campaign promise of closing the detention facility.

On Wednesday the U.S. Senate voted 90-6 to strip the $80 million the president requested for funding the close of the controversial prison by early 2010.

The president is expected to outline his plan in a speech Thursday morning most likely directed at the recent actions by the Senate to withhold funding.

 White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters, “He will go through some of the decisions we have to make regarding how to close down Guantanamo.”

One of the major stumbling blocks has been the uncertainty of where prisoners will be housed when the facility is shut down. Members of Congress have been openly critical of any suggestions that prisoners be moved inside the U.S. borders and housed in their backyards.   Gibbs said, “The president hasn’t decided where some of the detainees will be transferred.”

The Senate went so far as to remove the money from the $91.3 billion bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and also barred the administration from using any money to  bring detainees into the states through Sept. 30.

Obama is getting resistance from both sides of the aisle and warnings from the FBI that detainees could pose a threat if brought stateside.  

 “They [Congress] need and deserve a more detailed plan,” Gibb told reporters.

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), said he doesn’t support transferring suspected terrorists to prisons in the states and FBI director Robert Mueller agrees.  Mueller told the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday that detainees could be a triple threat if they support terrorism, help finance attacks, or recruit and radicalize others in the prison system.

What do you think; should the facility be closed and detainees brought to prisons in the United States? 

TAGS: Guantanomo Bay, president barack obama, Robert Muller, Sen. Harry Reid

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