Trump Orders Reopening of Alcatraz to Imprison Serial Offenders
President Donald Trump on Sunday announced he will 'reopen and rebuild' the historic Alcatraz prison off the San Francisco coast to jail the nation's most ruthless and violent repeat offenders.
In a Truth Social post on Sunday evening, Trump revealed that he has ordered the Bureau of Prisons, the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Homeland Security to reopen the former federal prison located on a small island in California's Bay Area.
'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,' Trump
Sunday's announcement is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to crack down on criminal activity and keep America safe. Trump has already deported hundreds of accused gang members and illegal immigrants to Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT), the maximum-security prison in El Salvador.
'We will no longer be held hostage to criminals, thugs, and Judges that are afraid to do their job and allow us to remove criminals, who came into our Country illegally,' Trump wrote. 'The reopening of ALCATRAZ will serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE.'
Alcatraz served as a federal prison from 1934 to 1963 but was ultimately shut down due to high operational costs and infrastructure challenges. According to the Bureau of Prisons, an
Related Stories
5/4/2025
5/4/2025
The island facility has now been closed for more than 60 years.
The former military prison was known to be impossible to escape due to the strong currents and cold waters of the Pacific Ocean. Throughout its history, 36 men tried to escape 14 separate times, according to the FBI. But most of those inmates were eventually captured or didn't survive the attempted escapes.
A 1979 movie called 'Escape from Alcatraz' featured a story about three inmates who tried to escape the notorious island facility. Alcatraz has infamously jailed well-known criminals such as gangster Al Capone, George 'Machine Gun' Kelly, Alvin Karpis, and Arthur Barker, according to the Bureau of Prisons website.
NTD contacted the office of California Gov. Gavin Newsom for comment on Trump's order to reopen the prison but did not receive an immediate response.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has publicly dismissed Trump's directive.
'Alcatraz closed as a federal penitentiary more than sixty years ago,' Pelosi
Alcatraz, which has been designated a National Historic Landmark, opened to the public in 1973 and since then has served as a tourist site operated by the National Park Service. Tourists can pay to ride a ferry to the island and take a tour of the former federal prison. More than one million visitors from around the world visit the island each year, according to the Bureau of Prisons.
People tour the main cell house on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco on March 15, 2021.
Eric Risberg/AP Photo
A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons said in a statement that it 'will comply with all Presidential Orders.'
Trump was pressed by the media on the proposal to reopen the facility.
'It's just an idea I've had,' Trump
'It's long been a symbol, Alcatraz. It's a sad symbol but it's a symbol of law and order,' he added.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
From
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Business Insider
17 minutes ago
- Business Insider
Trump's former Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross, says the US-China deal is still far from comprehensive
President Donald Trump's former Secretary of Commerce doesn't think the trade deal between the US and China is close to being "done." "It looks as though they made a fairly modest deal, mostly focusing on export controls on both the US side and the China side," Wilbur Ross, who was part of the first Trump administration, told Business Insider. "So it's far from a comprehensive deal." On Wednesday morning, Trump said on Truth Social that the deal with China is now "done." "It seems more or less to be reiterating the deal they thought they had set a few weeks ago," Ross said of the deal. China and the US reached a trade framework agreement on Tuesday, after their respective negotiation teams held two-day talks in London. The current Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, is part of the US trade talk team. "Full magnets, and any necessary rare earths, will be supplied, up front, by China," Trump added in all caps in the post. "Likewise, we will provide to China what was agreed to, including Chinese students using our colleges and universities (which has always been good with me!)." Ross said that the deal has not addressed many important issues, including intellectual property, so it may be too soon to call this a victory. "The Chinese side has been very careful to say it still needs to be approved by President Xi," said Ross. "When we negotiated with the China side last time, it wasn't unusual for the trade negotiators to agree to something, and then they would go back to Xi, and he would not go along with it." This year in duties on imports from China reached up to 245% on some goods. On May 14, many of the tariffs on China were reduced to 30% for 90 days, with a deadline of August 12. A 10% baseline tariff is still in place on the rest of the world, while additional higher tariffs on 75 countries have been paused until July 9. Ross said that it would be important to complete at least a few deals with key trading partners before the tariff pause on 75 countries expires. "I think that will help clear the air for the stock market because it'll start to show a direction and that there is a way to get all these things resolved," he said. "It's very important from a bond market point of view and from an equity market point of view."
Associated Press
18 minutes ago
- Associated Press
AP PHOTOS: Bruce Springsteen's Berlin concert
BERLIN (AP) — American rock star Bruce Springsteen, long a political opponent of President Donald Trump, performed before tens of thousands fans at a Berlin stadium where he denounced the U.S. administration as 'corrupt, incompetent and treasonous'. ___ This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.
Yahoo
19 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump Treasury Secretary Suddenly Backtracks on Major Tariff Deadline
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent indicated that Donald Trump is again intending to move the goalposts for his global tariff policy. The United States is fast approaching the end of the president's 90-day pause on his sweeping global tariffs on July 9, but while testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday, Bessent said that 'Liberation Day' Part 2 may not come to pass so soon. 'I would say, as I have repeatedly said, that there are 18 important trading partners. We are working toward deals on those. And it is highly likely that those countries that are negoti—or trading blocs, in the case of the EU—who are negotiating in good faith, we will roll the date forward to continue good-faith negotiations,' Bessent said. 'If someone is not negotiating, then we will not,' he added. The Trump administration has not even vaguely approached its initial promise to crack 90 deals in 90 days, only announcing two unfinished deals, with the U.K. and China. Crucially, Trump's paltry set of terms with China isn't even a deal. China referred to it as merely a 'framework,' while Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said it was a 'handshake for a framework' that both Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping need to approve. Trump seems intent on running the country's economic policy in 90-day increments, prolonging economic uncertainty that has roiled the markets and sent prices rising. But the president's failure should hardly come as a surprise, as the stated purpose of his tariffs—not to ensure economic prosperity but to bring U.S. trading partners to their knees—defies all logic and reason. With only two half-deals made, and a suddenly unclear horizon, it's not clear how TACO Trump will ever reach the goal of 200 trade deals he'd claimed to have made in April. Especially considering that there aren't even that many countries.
