The "Alcatraz federal prison" in Florida, which the Donald Trump administration in the United States brought back last year alongside a major immigrant crackdown, is expected to be shut down. At the time, President Trump personally promoted the reopening of the world-famous prison, drawing global attention, but it is set to disappear into history again in about a year.
On the 12th, The New York Times (NYT), citing three people familiar with the matter, reported that Florida plans to close the Everglades immigrant detention facility that reopened last summer. A prison official also was said to have notified vendors that the facility would be closing that afternoon.
Alcatraz inmates will be transferred to other facilities by early June, and demolition work is expected to proceed over the following weeks. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as of last month about 1,400 people are held at Alcatraz. However, because the closure decision has not yet been officially announced, specific details such as where inmates will be sent have not been disclosed.
The hefty operating expense is cited as the reason for the abrupt closure of Alcatraz, which had symbolized the Trump administration's hard-line immigration policy. Officials at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said they concluded that, because it is on an island, operational efficiency is poor and the expense burden is excessively high. Florida State Governments previously said it cost more than $1 million (about 1.5 billion won) per day to operate the facility, which sits in a remote area between Miami and Naples.
On top of that, Florida has yet to receive the $608 million (about 904.7 billion won) in federal subsidies it requested to run the prison for about a year. As a result, some private companies contracted by the state government are reportedly having trouble getting paid. A representative of one company, who requested anonymity, said in an interview last week, "The state government has not paid some of the billed expense for over 200 days."
Alcatraz has been at the center of controversy since it reopened. Democratic lawmakers who visited the facility last year strongly criticized the poor detention conditions, and in March a federal court ruled that detainees' access to counsel must be better guaranteed, fueling broader criticism of its overall operations. And last month, an appeals court overturned a lower court ruling that had ordered the state government to close and demolish the facility, putting it through several rounds of existential crisis.
CNN said, "The facility has been promoted by Republicans as a key tool for President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement policy," but added, "After nearly a year of legal battles, soaring operating expense, and controversy over inhumane conditions, it is ultimately moving toward closure."
Alcatraz prison is located on a rocky island about 2.4 kilometers off San Francisco. It was used as a military prison during the Civil War, then operated as a federal prison for 29 years from 1934 to 1963. Surrounded on all sides by cold ocean waters, it was notorious as a prison from which escape was geographically and structurally impossible.
In particular, alligators and pythons are said to inhabit the marshland where the prison stands. After announcing the prison's reopening last year, President Trump said, "Alligators are very fast," adding, "If illegal immigrants escape from that prison, we will teach them how to run from alligators. Never run in a straight line."
According to the NYT, Republican Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, suggested that even if Alcatraz prison is shut down, another state-run detention facility west of Jacksonville will continue to operate. He said, "Letting go of removal missions would be a major political problem," stressing that the hard-line immigration policy stance should be maintained ahead of the midterm elections in Nov.