CNN
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The US president Donald Trump announced Sunday on social networks that he will order the prison office to rebuild and reopen Alcatraz as a place to house the most violent and ruthless criminals in the United States.
“I order the Prison Office, together with the Department of justice, the FBI and the Department of National Security, which reopens a substantially expanded and rebuilt Alcatraz to house the most violent and ruthless criminals in the United States. We will no longer be hostages of criminals, thugs and judges who fear to do their job and allow us to expel criminals who entered our country illegally. Alcatraz will be a symbol of law, order and justice, ”wrote the president in Truth Social.
Alcatraz, located on an island off the coast of San Francisco, worked as a federal penitentiary for almost 30 years before its closure in 1963, “because the installation was too expensive to continue operating,” according to the prison office website.
It is estimated that they needed between US $ 3 and US $ 5 million only for restoration and maintenance works to maintain open prison. This figure did not include daily operating costs; Alcatraz’s operation was almost three times more expensive than any other federal prison, according to the website.
Currently, the National Parks Service manages it as a tourist destination and receives approximately 1.2 million visitors per year.
Alcatraz was appointed National Historic Monument in 1986. However, said designation “can be considered for retirement at the request of the owner or at the initiative of the Secretary of the Interior,” according to the National Parks Service.
However, there are certain criteria that make a monument lose its designation, such as “stop fulfilling the designation criteria; the qualities for which it was originally designated have been lost or destroyed.” CNN has contacted the Department of the Interior and the National Parks Service to request comments.
The idea seems to have been raised by the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., days after his father assumed a second mandate and signed a decree to send migrants to the Bay of Guantanamo, Cuba.
“What a great idea! Maybe we should also reopen Alcatraz?!,” Trump Jr. wrote in X.
