President Donald Trump’s plan to expand and reopen Alcatraz as a prison “to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders” caused the island to trend on X and other social media sites on Sunday.
And not many people were on board with the idea.
Alcatraz is currently a national park which receives some 1.2 million visitors per year. Those who tour the island in San Francisco Bay see facilities in various states of decay. The prison was crumbling even as it was still in operation, and the high cost of maintaining it was a key reason it shuttered in 1963.
Given those realities, restoring Alcatraz and then expanding it, as Trump called for on his Truth Social website, would likely cost a fortune ― and then another pile of cash would be needed to maintain it.
Reopening it as a prison would also mean the loss of the tourism revenue the island currently generates as well as a loss of habitat for its thriving bird population.
The president, however, said Alcatraz’s return to use as a prison would “serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE.”
His critics fired back that the idea would be an expensive boondoggle: