California lawmakers reacted to President Donald Trump’s suggestion that he would reopen Alcatraz with laughter, mockery and, for Democrats, indignation.
“It’s another bullshit distraction,” Rep. Salud Carbajal told NOTUS.
Trump posted on Sunday evening that he was ordering the refurbishment of Alcatraz, the island prison-turned historic landmark and tourist site off of San Francisco, to again incarcerate “the dregs of society.”
“REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ!” Trump said online, casting the move as both a workaround from judges that ruled against his deportation efforts and as a “symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE.”
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The Bureau of Prisons is now pursuing “all avenues to support and implement” Trump’s agenda, its administrator said. But members of Congress aren’t taking the Alcatraz reopening seriously.
“The president says so many stupid things,” Carbajal told NOTUS. “This is yet another one, trying to distract from the fact that he hasn’t addressed the cost of living for everyday Americans, childcare, housing, groceries.”
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose district encompasses Alcatraz, said online that “The President’s proposal is not a serious one.”
And Rep. Ro Khanna said he was taking it “just as seriously as I’m taking the suggestion that he’s gonna make Canada the 51st state.”
The prison was closed in 1963 by then-U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, fewer than three decades after it opened. The costs to service the island and the deteriorating prison infrastructure built upon it had grown too great.
“The institution was too expensive to continue operating,” per the Federal Bureau of Prisons. “It was more cost-effective to build a new institution than to keep Alcatraz open.”
“That was closed because it needs a tremendous amount of investment for repair. It’s so old and inadequate,” Rep. Mike Thompson said. “I don’t know how you do it, just from a business perspective. It’s dumb.”
As a tourist hotspot, though, Alcatraz generates tens of millions in revenue, according to the National Parks Service.
“I know a lot of tourists will be disappointed,” Rep. Ami Bera said. “There’s no seriousness there.”
“It’s a stupid idea,” Bera continued. ”It’s old, outdated, it’s a tourist attraction — it doesn’t make any sense. That’s just Donald Trump being a troll.”
One of California’s Republican lawmakers was similarly dismissive.
“Whatever,” GOP Rep. Jay Obernolte told NOTUS. “What-ever. He says a lot of things.”
In Trump’s post, he said he tasked the FBI, DOJ, DHS and the Bureau of Prisons to coordinate on the reopening of “a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders.”
“I guess we’ll see what the agencies come up with when they’ve done a physical feasibility study,” Obernolte said.
Rep. Lateefah Simon said she thinks “it’s a distraction.”
“I’ve been to Alcatraz many a time,” she added. “Clearly, it’s what he wants to do, but we’ll see. I’m not a supporter.”
A number of lawmakers simply laughed at Trump’s Alcatraz ambitions.
“I won’t suggest who should go there first,” Rep. Sam Liccardo said.
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Mark Alfred is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
This NOTUS story was produced in partnership with San José Spotlight and with NewsWell, home of Times of San Diego and Stocktonia.
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