Trump Asks Congress for $152 Million to Reopen Alcatraz

President Donald Trump is seeking $152 million from Congress to reopen Alcatraz as a prison.

The request, as part of his 2027 budget proposal, said the funds would pay for operational costs of the site for one year, and affirm “the President’s commitment to rebuild Alcatraz as a state-of-the-art secure prison facility.”

Last May, Trump first floated the notion of re-opening Alcatraz on his social media site, Truth Social, saying he would direct the federal safety agencies to reopen “a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders,” and that the facility would “serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE.”

A few months later, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum visited the island to announce the administration’s plans.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the White House’s Office of Management and Budget told KQED that “reopening Alcatraz is a Presidential priority and that’s reflected in the budget.”

“The Trump Administration’s budget proposal is absurd on its face and should be rejected outright,” Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi said in a statement. “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.”

Other Democratic lawmakers have similarly rejected the notion, which Pelosi called when Trump first announced the plans last year, his administration’s “stupidest initiative yet.”

State Sen. Scott Wiener, who is currently vying to succeed Pelosi in Congress, called the plan the “epitome of waste, fraud, and abuse.”

“Trump’s dementia continues to get the best of him,” he said. “Making Alcatraz a prison again isn’t a thing, and we’re not going to let him turn Alcatraz into his newest gulag. Back off.”

Wiener’s office said restoring the facility is expected to cost over $2 billion.

Estimated by the Bureau of Prisons around that time to be about three times as high as any other federal facility, Alcatraz was shuttered in 1963 due to high operating costs and crumbling infrastructure.

At its highest occupancy, the site housed between 260 and 275 people — less than 1% of federal prisoners in the country.

Trump’s plan would also face legislative challenges, since the island is currently under the control of the Department of the Interior as part of the Golden Gate Recreation Area, a federally recognized national park created in Congress in 1972.

The area includes Alcatraz, Muir Woods in Marin County and the Presidio in San Francisco.

Federal law requires that the National Park Service and Department of the Interior “preserve the recreation area, as far as possible, in its natural setting, and protect it from development and uses which would destroy the scenic beauty and natural character of the area.”

The land is also subject to the Historic Preservation, National Environmental Protection and Park Service Organic acts — federal protections that would make operating a prison on the site virtually impossible.

Alcatraz is a tourist destination that attracts more than 1.5 million visitors a year, generating tens of millions of dollars, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said when Trump first floated the idea of reopening the prison last year.

At a press conference, Lurie told reporters, “This is not a serious proposal.”