“If they want to spend billions and billions and billions of dollars, we have many opportunities,” he said. “Tourists come from all over the world to visit Alcatraz. Over 1.5 million visitors, tens of millions of dollars of economic activity to our city and to our region.”
State Sen. Scott Wiener expressed concern on social media that Trump might aim to use the island to hold people detained by ICE on social media.
“While this idea is absurd on so many levels — and destructive in seeking to destroy one of the most popular tourist sites in the country — Trump has shown that he executes on many of the insane and destructive things that come out of his warped brain,” he wrote on X.
Lisa Petrie, the communications director for the Presidio Trust, confirmed that park officials plan to show Burgum around the Presidio later Thursday.
Reopening the prison would be difficult under current legislation that places the island under the Department of the Interior’s control and designates it as part of a national park.
A National Park Service ranger walks down “Broadway” in the main cell block on Alcatraz Island on June 14, 2007, in San Francisco Bay, California. (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)
Nearly a decade after Alcatraz shuttered in 1963, Congress created the Golden Gate Recreation Area, which includes Alcatraz, Muir Woods in Marin County and the Presidio in San Francisco. All three became part of the newly formed national park, which was transferred to National Park Service control.
As a part of the Golden Gate Recreation Area, Alcatraz is subject to the Historic Preservation Act and the National Environmental Protection Act — federal protections that would make operating a prison on the site virtually impossible.
The 1972 act creating the park requires that the National Park Service and Department of the Interior “shall 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.”
As part of the national park system, the land also has to adhere to the Park Service Organic Act, which says it must “conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum (center) visited the Tunnel Tops in San Francisco on Thursday morning after he and Attorney General Pam Bondi toured Alcatraz, ahead of their announcement to reopen the former federal prison. (Katie DeBenedetti/KQED)
But forthcoming legislation would aim to repeal those requirements. Pelosi’s office confirmed that a House representative is expected to propose a bill that would remove key environmental protections governing the island, allowing it to be transferred out of the National Park Service’s control.
“Should reason not prevail and Republicans bring this absurdity before the Congress, Democrats will use every parliamentary and budgetary tactic available to stop the lunacy,” Pelosi said.
A Department of Justice spokesperson told KQED the Bureau of Prisons would operate the facility if it reopens.
The move builds on an earlier attack on the park, when, in February, Trump signed a DOGE-inspired executive order requiring the federal agency that runs the Presidio to submit a review of its operations and shut down any non-required functions, aiming to all but eliminate it.
The Presidio Trust has said that because of the tight law that created it, and its financial self-sufficiency, it has not had to make any changes to its function since the review.
A view of Crissy Field in the Presidio, a park and former military outpost, in San Francisco on Feb. 25, 2025. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
Still, critics have said reviving a prison on the island in the San Francisco Bay would be costly — and inefficient.
Alcatraz was shut down due to high operating costs, which the BOP estimated in 1959 were about three times as high as any other federal facility. At the time, the site also required an estimated $3 to 5 million in restoration and maintenance work.
At its highest occupancy, the site that now serves as a tourist destination housed less than 1% of federal prisoners in the country, with a usual occupancy between 260 and 275, according to the BOP.
Bondi and Burgum are expected to be accompanied by a Fox News crew, and make appearances at Muir Woods and the Presidio later in the day.