Trump wants to reopen infamous Alcatraz prison for 'vicious' criminals
Proposal 'not a serious one,' Democrat Nancy Pelosi says of land controlled by National Park Service
U.S. President Donald Trump says he is directing his government to reopen and expand Alcatraz, the notorious former prison on a hard-to-reach California island that has been closed for more than 60 years.
In a post on his Truth Social site Sunday evening, Trump wrote: "For too long, America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat criminal offenders, the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than misery and suffering. When we were a more serious nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. That's the way it's supposed to be.
"That is why, today, I am directing the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America's most ruthless and violent offenders," he wrote, adding: "The reopening of ALCATRAZ will serve as a symbol of law, order, and JUSTICE."
Alcatraz Island is now a major tourist site that is operated by the National Parks Service and is a designated National Historic Landmark.
"Looks like it's distraction day again in Washington, D.C.," a spokesperson for California Gov. Gavin Newsom's office told multiple U.S. media outlets in a statement.
The closure of the federal prison in 1963 was attributed to crumbling infrastructure and the high costs of repairing and supplying the island facility, because everything from fuel to food had to be brought by boat.
A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons said in a statement that the agency "will comply with all presidential orders." The spokesperson did not immediately answer questions from The Associated Press regarding the practicality and feasibility of reopening Alcatraz, or the agency's role in the future of the former prison given the National Park Service's control of the island.
The island serves as a veritable time machine to a bygone era of corrections. The Bureau of Prisons currently has 16 penitentiaries performing high-security functions, including its maximum security facility in Florence, Colo., and the U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., which is home to the federal death chamber.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat whose district includes the island, questioned the feasibility of reopening the prison after so many years.
"It is now a very popular national park and major tourist attraction. The president's proposal is not a serious one," she wrote on X.
The order comes as Trump has been clashing with the courts as his administration has deported people to a notorious prison in El Salvador. While the administration has alleged the deportees were gang members, judges have expressed frustration in lawsuits around supporting evidence for those claims from Justice Department lawyers, while Democrats in Congress have alleged many have been expelled from the U.S. without due process.
Trump has also directed the opening of a detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to hold up to 30,000 of what he has labelled the "worst criminal aliens."
Escape attempts, prolonged protest
Alcatraz — infamously inescapable due to the strong ocean currents and cold Pacific waters that surround it — was known as the "The Rock" and housed some of the nation's most notorious criminals, including gangster Al Capone and George (Machine Gun) Kelly.
It has long been part of the cultural imagination and has been the subject of numerous movies, including The Rock, starring Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage.
Still in the 29 years it was open, 36 men attempted 14 separate escapes, according to the FBI. Nearly all were caught or didn't survive the attempt.
The fate of three particular inmates — John Anglin, his brother Clarence and Frank Morris — is the subject of some debate and was dramatized in the 1979 film Escape from Alcatraz starring Clinton Eastwood.
Its location also did not prevent an occupation that lasted about 18 months, as dozens of Indigenous activists and their supporters descended on the island to protest that it was land that should have been returned to the Lakota tribe, per a 19th-century treaty, after Alcatraz's closure.
The protest eventually fizzled out, with government agents re-asserting control in mid-1971.
With files from CBC News