Trump wants to reopen Alcatraz prison. Californians say it's a crazy move.

Washington Post

06-05-2025

ALCATRAZ ISLAND, Calif. — The barred cell doors are so rusted they can't close. Century-old lead paint is peeling off the walls. Concrete is crumbling, and the old rec yard is caked in seagull guano. This is no longer a fearsome prison. Not a working one, anyway.
Alcatraz the penitentiary shut down in 1963, but Alcatraz the idea has lived on, a permanent part of the American mythology, a timeless symbol of ruthless and unforgiving incarceration. It's a potent image, inspired by tales both fact and fiction, and it has captured the world's imagination — including, apparently, that of President Donald Trump.
To Trump, who in a social media post announced his intention to 'REBUILD AND OPEN ALCATRAZ,' the island is peak prison. 'The ultimate,' he said, explaining his rationale to reporters.
But on 'The Rock' — the nickname for this craggy piece of land a mile from the San Francisco waterfront — the president's proposal looked like a longshot. Visitors to the site, now a popular tourist attraction, said it seemed like an outlandish idea as they surveyed the prison's remaining buildings, all in varying states of disrepair. Locals took it as yet another attack on the legendarily liberal city, long one of Trump's favorite punching bags. And elected officials treated it as both dangerous and distracting, vowing to either impede or ignore the plan.
'The chances of Alcatraz being repurposed as a prison are about as large as landing a man on Pluto,' said Aaron Peskin, a former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, who regularly swims in the frigid bay waters surrounding the island. 'If I had my way, there would only be one prisoner in that place, and it would be Donald Trump.'
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Trump, continuing to claim that the country is overrun by violent crime despite evidence to the contrary, first said he would direct his administration to 'reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt' Alcatraz to house America's 'most ruthless and violent' offenders. He has sent mixed signals about the plan since, appearing to walk it back as 'just an idea I've had' in one set of comments before doubling down in another.
William K. Marshall III, the director of the Bureau of Prisons, said in a statement that he had 'ordered an immediate assessment to determine our needs and the next steps' to reopen Alcatraz.
But much remains unclear about the project, which would be astronomically expensive and extraordinarily difficult to enact.
As Trump worked to finesse his plan, tourists continued flocking to the island, lining up to take the 15-minute ferry ride from San Francisco's Pier 33 to the decommissioned prison, which is now managed by the National Park Service.
Nearly all were skeptical of Trump's proposal.
'He's not going to get it approved,' said Ashley Macey, a 27-year-old Brit and true crime devotee who said a chance to visit Alcatraz was the main motivation for her transatlantic trip. Trump's statements, she said, were 'wishy-washy.'
Others, like 29-year-old Kevin Sumlin, worried about the message such a move would send.
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'I think it would put a dirt cloud back over the prison,' said Sumlin, in town from Connecticut, as he waited to board the ferry.
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Yesenia Valencia, an 18-year-old from California's Central Valley, was visiting the prison on a high school class field trip. She and her fellow students left home before sunrise Monday to make the journey and saw Trump's comments while en route.
'We watched it on the way to San Francisco and thought, 'What the heck?'' she said. 'It's crazy. I feel like he shouldn't be doing that.'
Another visitor, a 46-year-old from Iowa, said reopening Alcatraz would be 'a waste of money.' She spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid a dispute with her husband, a Trump voter.
And several international tourists — from Argentina, Poland and the Netherlands — declined to speak on the record out of fear that they would not be allowed to travel freely in the United States or obtain visas to live here if they were quoted disagreeing with the president.
'It's like a horror movie,' a 70-year-old Dutch traveler said of Alcatraz, adding that it would be 'insane' to reopen it.
One visitor interviewed, Marivic Hammari, a 43-year-old from nearby Sausalito, said she agreed with Trump's mission, despite the cost, because 'it would be nice to use the building.'
Several state and local Democrats issued muted reactions, dismissing Trump's plan as a lark meant to divert attention from other negative headlines, including the ongoing ripple effects of his tariff regime.
A spokesperson for California Gov. Gavin Newsom said, 'Looks like it's distraction day again in Washington, D.C.' And San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said it was 'not a serious proposal.'
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But state Sen. Scott Wiener, who represents San Francisco, said Trump in his second term has shown more follow-through than in his first and leaders cannot afford to write off even his far-out musings.
'It's a combination of ridiculously stupid and scary,' Wiener said. 'If he does this, he's literally setting taxpayer money on fire.'
A constellation of local small businesses relies on revenue generated by the nearly 1.5 million tourists who visit Alcatraz each year, from tour guides to ferry companies and restaurants along the water. The island, along with the Golden Gate Bridge, is one of San Francisco's biggest draws, a boon especially as the city looks to recover from a pandemic-induced malaise.
This week marks the second time this year Trump has targeted an iconic San Francisco property under federal jurisdiction. In February, the president moved to make cuts to the Presidio Trust, which oversees Presidio National Park, a beloved swath of green space at the city's northernmost tip.
'He clearly doesn't like San Francisco,' Wiener said. Of the Alcatraz plan, he added: 'If there's any way for us to gum this up, we will try to gum it up.'
But logistical, financial and bureaucratic hurdles may be gummy enough on their own.
When Alcatraz closed in 1963, it was in such bad shape that the federal government ruled it would be more cost effective to abandon it and open another prison elsewhere. It was nearly three times more expensive to run than the average federal facility, and it needed millions of dollars in renovations.
'It hasn't gotten any better,' said John A. Martini, an Alcatraz historian who worked on the island as a Park Service ranger when the agency took over its operations in the 1970s. 'If this were a TV show, like on Home and Garden, the prison would be a teardown.'
The island lacks basic utilities: No running water or sewage system and spotty electricity that relies on fuel shipped in by boat.
'It has essentially become a stabilized ruin,' Martini said.
During its stint as a prison, ancient sewers beneath the facility pumped waste directly into San Francisco Bay, pollution that would be outlawed under modern environmental law. Nowadays, the park's septic tank is transported to the mainland for disposal. And the island's electrical system would need massive revamping to support a population of prisoners and staff that could number in the hundreds.
If prison structures were demolished and rebuilt, the government would face a legion of other challenges, since construction materials would need to be ferried to the island — a problem that would be compounded if the country is still battling high building costs associated with Trump's trade war.
And then there's the problem of the ferrying itself. The only boats to Alcatraz currently leave from a city dock owned by the Port of San Francisco. The port is overseen by a group of mayoral appointees, who could spark a standoff with the federal government if they refuse to cooperate with Trump's changes. A spokesperson for the port did not respond to a request for comment.
The Trump administration could also look to build a new dock elsewhere on the mainland, but options are limited. Before its closure, the prison used a pier at Fort Mason, now home to a thriving cultural center. In 2022, the pier burned down.
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'All these things would have to be tackled to make Alcatraz a prison,' Martini said. 'It would be dauntingly expensive.'
What's more, Martini said, reopening the site as a prison and closing it off from public access would mean fewer Americans learning about the island's rich cultural history — from its time as a Civil War fort to the key role it played in Indigenous activism — and its surprisingly abundant wildlife and lush gardens.
Trump officials have argued that the president's proposal is real, feasible and necessary. In an interview on Fox News, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said Alcatraz would be 'easily refurbished' and would hark back to 'a time when this country was strong.'
Trump, addressing reporters on Monday, acknowledged the prison was 'a big hulk that's sitting there rusting and rotting' but that it nonetheless 'represents something very strong, very powerful, in terms of law and order.'
When pressed on how he came up with the idea, Trump said he 'was supposed to be a moviemaker,' alluding to silver screen depictions of the prison, which served as the backdrop for 1979's 'Escape from Alcatraz' starring Clint Eastwood and 1962's 'Birdman of Alcatraz' with Burt Lancaster.
Gone unmentioned in the Oval Office was a more recent Alcatraz film, a 1996 blockbuster called 'The Rock,' which earned some $335 million and was mostly shot on location. David Weisberg, who co-wrote the screenplay, couldn't believe what he was reading when he saw Trump's plan.
Weisberg, who attended the premier of 'The Rock' on Alcatraz, said the prison 'was a crumbling wreck 30 years ago,' and it was only through Hollywood magic that it was for one night transformed into a movie theater.
Asked if he thought his movie may have inspired the move, Weisberg laughed.
'It beggars my imagination that somebody would think this was a good idea,' he said. 'I have no idea who put this idea into his head.'