Like many Americans, President Donald Trump has become fixated on Alcatraz, the notorious, frequently fog-shrouded California island fortress in the San Francisco Bay.
But for Trump, the defunct prison is more than a pop-culture, literary and cinematic phenomenon reminiscent of an era when the federal government dealt with gangsters so dangerous they were jailed on a remote, maximum-security island. It’s an opportunity to build “a state-of-the-art secure prison facility.”
And the president wants to use at least $152 million worth of taxpayer dollars to turn the dilapidated facility — shuttered in 1963 because its remoteness made it too expensive to operate — into a functional federal prison.
The White House sent Congress an outline of Trump’s spending priorities for the upcoming fiscal year on Friday. In it was a $5 billion request for the Bureau of Prisons to renovate the country’s “crumbling detention facilities.” More than $150 million of that would be directed toward upholding “the president’s commitment to rebuild Alcatraz.”
The money would cover the first year of project costs, the White House said. But that number pales in comparison to the projected cost of fully restoring Alcatraz, which has not housed a prisoner since the early 1960s.
In its heyday, operations at Alcatraz cost three times more than the average federal prison, according to a 1959 report published by the General Services Administration that assessed the long-term viability of keeping the prison open. Jailing one inmate on the island cost $10 per day, compared to $3 in other prisons.
The prison was closed in the early 1960s because its remoteness and proximity to salt water corrosion ultimately made it too expensive to sustain. Everything from water to food and fuel had to be sent to the island by boat. The logistical challenges of holding inmates on the island long term won’t just disappear, critics argue.
California’s politicians have balked at Trump’s proposal, arguing it would erase an important part of American history and cut into San Francisco’s already struggling local economy. Alcatraz generates about $60 million in tourism revenue every year, according to the National Park Service, which operates the public museum on the island.
“Rebuilding Alcatraz into a modern prison is a stupid notion that would be nothing more than a waste of taxpayer dollars and an insult to the intelligence of the American people,” Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker and California Democrat whose district encompasses swaths of San Francisco, said in a statement on X.
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, a Democrat, dismissed the notion as unserious when Trump first began flirting with the idea last spring.
“If the federal government has billions of dollars to spend in San Francisco, we could use that funding to keep our streets safe and clean and help our economy recover,” Lurie wrote in a post on X after Trump deployed a delegation of federal officials — which included his now former Attorney General Pam Bondi and Federal Bureau of Prisons Director William Marshall — to size up the prison last July.
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After the visit, Bondi teased the idea of using a renovated Alcatraz to imprison “illegal aliens.” And Trump suggested Alcatraz could serve as a model to counter former President Joe Biden’s border policies.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons said last year it would issue a “leave no stone unturned” directive to “determine whether the iconic Alcatraz can, once again, serve as a fortress of law and order.” Congress would need to approve Trump’s request for funding the Alcatraz project.
Alcatraz was designated a National Historic Landmark in the 1980s, giving it legally protected status. It’s unclear how the White House would circumvent that designation to open a federal prison. The White House declined to comment to MS NOW’s request about its plan to navigate Alcatraz’s legal protections, referring questions to the Office of Management and Budget.
Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has focused on what he calls “restoring truth and sanity to American history,” which has included revamping the Smithsonian Institution and national parks in his image — including a planned 250-foot arch along the Potomac River — while demolishing the East Wing of the White House to make way for his new ballroom.
As those plans become legally imperiled, his Alcatraz proposal also stands to face a battle.
“Alcatraz is a historic museum that belongs to the public,” Pelosi said. “San Franciscans will not stand for Washington turning one of our most iconic landmarks into a political prop.”
Emily Hung contributed to this report.
Sydney Carruth is a breaking news reporter covering national politics and policy for MS NOW. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at SydneyCarruth.46 or follow her work on X and Bluesky.