"Absurd." This was the reaction of California State Senator Scott Wiener, a Democrat, and many other leaders of the Golden State, to Donald Trump's latest idea to reopen Alcatraz, the island prison in San Francisco Bay and a symbol of a harsh penal system. Closed in March 1963, Alcatraz was transformed a decade later into a national park visited by about 1.2 million tourists annually.
On his social network, Truth Social, Trump wrote on Sunday, May 4, that he had ordered the Federal Bureau of Prisons, in coordination with the Department of Justice, the FBI and Homeland Security, to "reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America's most ruthless and violent Offenders."
The president tied the project to his broader efforts to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. While awaiting new funding from Congress, detention centers (with a capacity of 50,000 places) are full, and the judiciary has curbed his attempts to deport without judicial process. "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," wrote Trump.
Alcatraz is located on a piece of land nicknamed "the Rock," a nine-hectare rocky peak where the US Army built a fort and then a military prison in 1907, before handing it over to civilian justice in 1934. In 1963, 30 years after its opening, it was closed by Robert F. Kennedy, the attorney general under President John F. Kennedy. Maintenance costs were three times higher than other penitentiaries. All supplies, including drinking water, had to be delivered by boat.
Alcatraz once housed legendary prisoners like Al Capone. Only three inmates managed to escape, in 1962, through a ventilation duct, but it was never confirmed if they survived the currents and icy waters of the bay leading into the Pacific.
Since 1973, the former prison has been open to the public under the management of the National Park Service. According to experts cited by the San Francisco Chronicle, the building is completely unusable. There is no running water, no sewage system and only a few sections have electricity.
The idea of reopening Alcatraz cannot be separated from Trump's project to reclaim the narrative of American history, which, according to him, has too many concessions to minorities. Alcatraz is an important symbol for Native Americans. In 1969, the island prison was occupied by students claiming to be from all tribes, a movement that awakened American consciousness about the plight of Indigenous peoples. The proclamation of the time, "Indians Welcome," painted on the dock, was solemnly repainted for the 50th anniversary of the occupation.
Every year in mid-October, Alcatraz doesn't celebrate Columbus Day, as in parts of the country, which marks the "Day of Christopher Columbus," the explorer who paved the way for colonization, but "Indigenous Peoples' Day." On April 28 on Truth Social, Trump announced his intention to bring Columbus Day "back from the ashes" despite the Democrats' attempts to "destroy Christopher Columbus, [and] his reputation."
Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.