Overview

• Attorney General Pam Bondi and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum toured Alcatraz Island on July 17 to direct federal staff to begin planning its conversion into a high-security prison under President Trump’s order
• The proposal remains without a formal budget or executive order and must clear Congress, including repealing environmental and historic-preservation statutes by a two-thirds majority vote
• Experts warn the island’s facilities are largely inoperable and estimate that restoring and reopening the prison could cost nearly $1 billion with $40–100 million in annual maintenance
• President Trump casts the move as a symbolic “law-and-order” measure to house the nation’s most violent offenders, but critics describe it as a publicity stunt
• Local leaders such as Nancy Pelosi and Gavin Newsom caution that converting the National Park Service site, which generates about $60 million in annual tourism revenue, would strain public resources