Trump asks Congress for $152 million to start rebuilding Alcatraz prison

WASHINGTON— President Trump is requesting $152 million from Congress to begin “rebuilding” the prison on Alcatraz Island for operational use, but his administration appears to have taken few steps to advance the project.

Request in the President’s proposal budget For fiscal year 2027, it revives Trump’s remarkable concept of turning the dilapidated site, which has stood as a piece of history for more than 60 years, into a working federal prison.

But on Friday, the Bureau of Prisons said it had no new information to share about the potential project and no update on whether evaluations the agency said it began last year had been completed.

A spokesman said the bureau was “moving forward, evaluating, and formulating necessary actions” and pointed to a May 2025 statement from bureau director William K. Marshall pledging to “vigorously pursue all avenues to support and implement the President’s agenda.”

The funding request was included in Trump’s budget proposal, giving Congress a look at the administration’s priorities ahead of the next fiscal year. Congress makes final funding decisions on behalf of the government.

Critics of the administration say establishing a working prison on the San Francisco Bay island would be prohibitively expensive and raise questions about its fate as a historic site that draws more than a million tourists a year.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said Friday that she would try to block Trump’s proposal in Congress in any way possible, calling it “a stupid idea that would be nothing but a waste of taxpayer dollars.”

“Alcatraz is a public historical museum, and San Franciscans will not tolerate Washington turning one of our most iconic landmarks into a political prop,” he said in a statement.

The $152 million request is valid only for the first year of the project. It is unclear how long the project will take or what its total cost will be. The budget proposal described the project as a “state-of-the-art, secure prison facility.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

“This represents something very powerful, very powerful in terms of law and order,” Trump said. he told reporters last year. “It housed the world’s most violent criminals. … It kind of represents something that’s both terrible and beautiful and powerful and miserable.”

He described the historic site as “rusting and decaying.”

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington), vice chairwoman of the Senate appropriations committee, said Trump would waste taxpayer money on Alcatraz and “ignore multibillion-dollar repair-repair needs for existing federal prisons.”

The government opened the federal prison at Alcatraz in 1934, hoping to use the remote island to house particularly difficult prisoners, according to the National Park Service. Their cells housed notorious criminals like Al Capone and a few failed criminals. escape attempts captured the public imagination.

The prison was closed in 1963 after it became too costly to operate. A group of Native American activists occupied the land sometime between 1969 and 1971, and in 1972 Alcatraz became a national recreation area under the management of the National Park Service. The following year it was opened to the public as a national park attraction and was later designated a national park. National Historic Landmark.

Trump, who strives to catch criminals and continues his plans to open new detention centers in his second term, put forward the idea of ​​Alcatraz last year and said that he wanted to send “America’s most brutal and violent criminals” there.

He directed the Bureau of Prisons to take over the task. In July, then Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum visited the island.

“Alcatraz could house the worst of the worst, it could house violent middle-class inmates, it could house illegal aliens.” Bondi told Fox News during the visit. “This is a wonderful facility; it requires a lot of work, but no one is known to have escaped from Alcatraz and survived.”

The Bureau of Prisons said at the time that no final decision had been made on whether to use the site, but that the agency would decide “whether it makes operational, legal and financial sense.”

The bureau said it was then working on a cost estimate and feasibility report to submit to Congress, following a site evaluation with the National Park Service and work by engineers and planners on potential budgets and models.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Friday that opening Alcatraz would be “prohibitively expensive” for the federal government. He has previously described the concept as part of the Trump administration’s attack on national parks.

“Trump’s insistence on reopening this as a federal prison is a wasteful exercise in vain,” Schiff said. “Instead of raising the cost of our prisons, we should focus on lowering the cost of living for the American people.”