May 5th, 2025.

On his social media feed yesterday evening, President Donald J. Trump announced he was

directing the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially

enlarged and rebuilt Alcatraz to house America's most ruthless and violent offenders.

The reopening of Alcatraz will serve as a symbol of law, order, and justice.

We will make America great again. No one is reopening

the island of Alcatraz as a federal prison. Officials closed it in 1963 after 29 years of

operation because it was too expensive to operate, more than three times as

expensive as any other federal prison. Since then, it has become one of the most popular sites of

the National Park Service, located as it is in San Francisco Bay, easily accessible by ferry.

It feels rather as if Trump is throwing any strong words he can

at the wall to distract from a series of news stories that are not going his way. One of those stories

is that Trump's popularity is falling in rural areas which make up his base. That popularity is unlikely to rebound quickly,

as rural areas are being hardest hit by the administration's cuts. It's possible Trump hopes that

throwing the word Alcatraz in all caps at those voters will remind them that he is supposed

to be the president who will crack down on the immigrants

he insists are dangerous criminals. But seven journalists from the Washington Post reported yesterday

that many of the men rendered from the U.S. to El Salvador were in the U.S. legally and were complying

with U.S. immigration rules. Furthermore, although the Trump administration

said it had to send the men to El Salvador because Venezuela would not take them back, the journalists

reported that Venezuela refused the transfer only after Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act.

Trump's proclamation said that property belonging to those he deems enemies

...