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Indigenous peoples say Alcatraz Island is a sacred space and symbol of Indigenous resistance, while abolitionists say the money proposed to rebuild the federal prison should go toward the local community
Morning Star Gali grew up going to Indigenous Peoples’ Day and Thanksgiving sunrise gatherings on Alcatraz Island to pay homage to the site as a symbol of Native American survival and resistance. Participants would board boats to the island, just offshore from San Francisco, as early as 4 a.m., form a circle of up to 5,000 people, open with land acknowledgment from Ohlone leaders, and celebrate with traditional songs, dancing, and solidarity statements from speakers around the world.
But from 1934 to 1963, Alcatraz was the site of a notorious federal maximum security prison known for isolation and punishment. Now, President Donald Trump is planning to reopen it. In his 2027 budget proposal announced in April, Trump requested $152 million as part of his “commitment to rebuild Alcatraz as a state-of-the-art secure prison facility.” He first announced his intentions last year, writing on his own social media site Truth Social that he wanted to reopen Alcatraz prison for “America’s most ruthless and violent offenders.”
The International Indian Treaty Council, which Gali has worked with for 17 years, said in a press release that the group doesn’t want to see Alcatraz, where many Indigenous leaders were imprisoned, return to a place of misery and repression.
“Reopening Alcatraz as a prison would not just be an act of historical erasure, it would be a declaration that this country is doubling down on its most violent legacies,” said Gali, a member of the Ajumawi band of the Pit River Tribe and founder of the nonprofit Indigenous Justice, in a text message.
The Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment.
Gali said that the island is sacred ground, representing visibility for Indigenous peoples. Following the closure of the Alcatraz prison, a student-led Indigenous occupation of the island from 1969 to 1971 demanded justice, treaty rights, and an end to the ongoing colonization of their lands. They considered it Indigenous land because so many of their leaders had been imprisoned there and following the closure of Alcatraz, they cited the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty that abandoned federal land would be returned to Indigenous peoples.
“To transform Alcatraz back into a prison would be an assault on that legacy and a desecration of what it represents,” Gali said.
Infrastructure falling apart
Beyond the insult to Indigenous peoples, advocates said the plan to reopen Alcatraz prison was unfeasible for multiple logistical reasons.
Troy Williams has worked with the Formerly Incarcerated Speaker Series on Alcatraz Island to give tours of the now-closed prison since 2018. As someone who was formerly incarcerated, he uses the talks as an opportunity to engage participants in conversations around redemption and rehabilitation.
Williams said it’s apparent to him in his frequent trips to Alcatraz prison that the infrastructure is in decline. He believed it would take a lot of money to repair the facility. He said that the dining hall in Alcatraz where the Formerly Incarcerated Speaker Series talk was supposed to be held had to be shut down recently.
“Alcatraz does not have the capability to house prisoners anymore,” Williams said. “It’s pretty dilapidated. There’s lead, there’s no running water, there’s no real infrastructure there. Most of the buildings are falling down.”
Williams also said the $152 million budget for Alcatraz felt contradictory to Trump’s claims that he wanted to reduce government spending.
“In order to rebuild Alcatraz, we’re talking at least a billion dollars, and that doesn’t even go into the operating cost that it would cost to run Alcatraz every year,” Williams said.
After Trump stated that he wanted to reopen Alcatraz last year, Jolene Babyak, who lived on Alcatraz island as a child while her father was an administrator in the prison, told NBC News that the building was built by people imprisoned by the military from 1909 to 1911, and that they weren’t the most competent so “the building was always somewhat compromised.”
Babyak said the government would most likely have to start from scratch to rebuild the prison.
Diana Crofts-Pelayo, a spokesperson from California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office, said in an email, “This project is stupid and a waste of taxpayer money.”
“In California, we are proud of our public safety strategy rooted in responsibility, evidence, and redemption,” Crofts-Pelayo said. “That’s the difference between California and Trump.”
People over punishment
Williams said it is important to invest in programs that help people and prevent crime, instead of bolstering systems that enforce punishment and isolation. He said that when many people hear about Alcatraz, they think about notorious figures who were imprisoned there, such as Al Capone and Prohibition-era bootlegger Machine Gun Kelly, but overlook the human impact and rehabilitation.
“If the only thing that we’re putting in the people’s mindset is the harm and not the repair. People become more focused on the harm and just locking people up and throwing people away, as opposed to saying, ‘Hey, what can we do?’” Williams said.
He said there is a dungeon in Alcatraz where, during its time as a military prison before it was run by the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), guards would chain people up in standing positions, something that “feels very draconian.” Even then, under BOP, people in Alcatraz could be in solitary confinement in complete darkness in the dungeon for up to 19 days. The first known Indigenous man imprisoned there was shot by a guard two days after he arrived at Alcatraz.
“It’s like you stick somebody in a cage for 15 [or] 20 years and automatically expect them to come home rehabilitated because they sat in a cell,” Williams said. “That makes no sense when what people need is actually skill sets. What people need is actually an opportunity for you to make a legitimate income. What people need is actually affordable housing.”
Williams said he has seen many people come home and make meaningful contributions to society when prisons emphasize education and reentry. According to the Major Cities Chiefs Association, in California’s major cities violent crime dropped 12% in 2025 compared to 2024.
“[Alcatraz] occupies this legacy in the minds of the American public as a place of disappearance, punishment, and extreme isolation,” said Firdaus Arastu, national media and communications director of abolitionist nonprofit Critical Resistance. “Trump specifically singling out Alcatraz reinforces what he claims that prisons serve law and order, but we know only causes further harm and suffering to communities.”
Alcatraz should remain a place of remembrance, Indigenous sovereignty and resilience, not weaponized once again to expand an unjust system.Morning Star Gali, founder of Indigenous Justice
Arastu said any prison causes harm by separating people from their communities and takes away from investing in health care, education, and a clean environment.
“Trump’s call to reopen Alcatraz is within that larger picture of continuing to funnel money towards those things and setting instead of investing in community well-being,” Arastu said.
California has closed five prisons since 2025, which advocates largely attribute to an abolitionist campaign to close prisons and invest in communities. A coalition of more than 80 organizations in the state is calling for the state to close 10 more prisons.
While Alcatraz is a federal prison, Arastu said she can see the coalition using lessons that it has learned from the fight to close state prisons. At the same time, the fight to close prisons is intensifying as the federal government is attempting to reopen Federal Correctional Institution Dublin, which had to be closed down because of rampant sexual assault on incarcerated women dubbed “the rape club” and the reopening of another California prison for immigrant detention centers.
Gali echoed Arastu’s sentiments.
“Instead of building more prisons, we should be dismantling the systems that rely on incarceration as a tool of control,” she said in an interview. “Alcatraz should remain a place of remembrance, Indigenous sovereignty and resilience, not weaponized once again to expand an unjust system.”
Editorial Team:
Sahar Fatima, Lead Editor
Lara Witt, Top Editor
Rashmee Kumar, Copy Editor
Victoria Valenzuela is an independent journalist based in California covering issues in the criminal legal system, gender equality, activism, and social justice. She has been published in The Guardian, BuzzFeed News, LAist, Bolts, ScheerPost, and more. She is also a former intern with the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, was an emerging reporter fellow with ProPublica, uprising fellow with Just Media, and part of the inaugural cohort of the Law and Justice Journalism Project. She recently graduated from the University of Southern California with a master’s degree in specialized journalism with a concentration in social justice and investigations.
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