President Donald Trump’s Sunday announcement of plans to reopen San Francisco’s Alcatraz Island as a prison has irked San Francisco Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
“REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ!” said Trump on Truth Social. “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.”
Trump later explained that he views Alcatraz as “a symbol of law and order.”
First designated a prison in 1934, Alcatraz held some of America’s most iconic gangsters: Al Capone, George “Machine Gun Kelly” Barnes and others.
But not everyone is so pleased with the idea of reopening Alcatraz Island, which was closed as a prison in 1963 and acquired in 1972 by the National Park Service.
“Alcatraz closed as a federal penitentiary more than sixty years ago. It is now a very popular national park and major tourist attraction,” wrote Pelosi on X. Pelosi’s district comprises most of San Francisco and includes Alcatraz.
“The President’s proposal is not a serious one,” she said.
Reopening Alcatraz has been one of many symbolic gestures made by the president thus far in his second administration.
This week, the House of Representatives will vote on a bill to codify his renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to “The Gulf of America.”
Trump has also revived historical symbols and imagery with his decorating choices in the Oval Office, where he displays the Declaration of Independence and numerous presidential portraits.