Trump officials tour Alcatraz as president keeps pushing to reopen 'The Rock'
Attorney General Pam Bondi and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum visited Alcatraz, the infamous prison island that Trump has said he wants to reopen.
Attorney General Pam Bondi visited Alcatraz on July 17, the infamous federal prison island in the San Francisco Bay that President Donald Trump has said he wants to reopen to house the country's "most ruthless and violent" criminal offenders.
Bondi toured the site long known as "the Rock" alongside Secretary for the Interior Doug Burgum, whose agency operates the popular tourist site via the National Park Service. During their visit, the Trump Cabinet officials directed staff to help with the Republican administration's plans for rehabilitating and reopening it, according to a source familiar with the matter.
"Alcatraz is the brand known around the world for being effective at housing people that are in incarceration," Burgum said in a Fox News interview. "Part of this would be to test the feasibility about returning it back to its original use."
Trump said in a May 4 Truth Social post that he was directing the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which Bondi oversees, to reopen and enlarge the prison that once housed notorious mob boss Al Capone. The prison was shuttered in 1963 after being deemed too expensive to keep operating, according to the bureau's website.
"The reopening of ALCATRAZ will serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE," Trump posted earlier this spring.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose congressional district includes San Francisco, said in a July 16 statement ahead of the visit that it was "a diversionary tactic" to distract from Trump's so-called "Big Beautiful Bill" – legislation that was signed into law July 4 that slashes both taxes and benefit programs like Medicaid.
"It remains to be seen how this Administration could possibly afford to spend billions to convert and maintain Alcatraz as a prison when they are already adding trillions of dollars to the national debt with their sinful law," Pelosi said.
Alongside the expressed plans to open the prison island, the Trump administration has dubbed a migrant detention center that was recently reopened in the Florida Everglades "Alligator Alcatraz."
Alcatraz island opened to the public in 1973 and attracts more than one million visitors each year, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Contributing: Reuters