President Donald Trump’s budget request has re-ignited talk of re-opening Alcatraz Island as a prison.
Anna Connors/S.F. Chronicle
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is seeking $152 million to kick-start his plan to reopen Alcatraz as a federal prison.
The request to Congress was buried in the 2027 budget proposal that Trump released on Friday. The document “affirms the President’s commitment to rebuild Alcatraz as a state-of-the-art secure prison facility” and includes money to “cover the first year of project costs,” but provides no further details about how the $152 million would be used.
The White House referred questions to the Office of Management and Budget, which shared a 2025 social media post in which Trump called to reopen the former maximum security prison “to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders” and “serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE.”
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The Alcatraz funding is a tiny item in Trump’s overall budget plan, which also proposes a $500 billion boost to defense spending while cutting domestic programs by 10%. Congress, still fighting over fully funding the government in the current fiscal year, would have to approve those changes.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said in a statement that Trump’s proposed budget would “further ignite the American dream,” but a spokesperson did not respond to a question about whether he supports rebuilding Alcatraz. Neither did a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.
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It would almost certainly face fierce opposition from Democrats, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi, San Francisco’s longtime member of Congress, who said in a statement that she would “use every parliamentary and budgetary tactic available to block this lunacy.”
“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,” she said. “Alcatraz is a historic museum that belongs to the public, and San Franciscans will not stand for Washington turning one of our most iconic landmarks into a political prop.”
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Former Attorney General Pam Bondi and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum walk on a boat ramp during a visit to Alcatraz Island July 17, 2025.
Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle
The project’s inclusion in the president’s budget nevertheless confirms that Trump remains on board with a long shot venture that had appeared to fade from interest.
Trump first suggested reinstating Alcatraz, which operated as a federal penitentiary from 1933 to 1963, last May — possibly after watching the 1979 Clint Eastwood film “Escape from Alcatraz.”
Then in July, Trump administration officials, including then-Attorney General Pam Bondi and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, visited San Francisco to tour the historic site, which is a popular tourist attraction operated by the National Park Service.
But the president appeared to move on after that. Aside from suggesting in July that sharks would patrol the waters around Alcatraz, he never publicly discussing a formal plan for reopening the prison, which was shuttered more than 60 years ago because it was so expensive to run and vulnerable to escape attempts by inmates.
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The project faces major practical and legal challenges, including an estimated $2 billion price tag to renovate the crumbling facilities on an island in San Francisco Bay and nearly universal opposition from local officials.
“Trump’s idiotic quest to sink $2 billion into ruining a globally popular tourist attraction is the epitome of waste, fraud, and abuse,” state Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat who is running to succeed Pelosi, said in a statement. “Trump’s dementia continues to get the best of him. 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.”
Diana Crofts-Pelayo, a spokesperson for Gov. Gavin Newsom, the former San Francisco mayor, called the project “stupid and a waste of taxpayer money” in a statement. San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie dismissed it last year as “not a serious proposal,” though he did not comment Friday about the proposed funding.