Don Jr: If Dad’s Opening Guantanamo for Illegals, Why Not Alcatraz, Too?

Whether phrased as straightforward or with his trademark cheekiness, President Donald Trump never says anything publicly without a clear purpose.

His son, Donald Trump Jr., has probably inherited that same quality of conveying serious purpose through occasional cheek.

Wednesday on the social media platform X, Trump Jr. responded to his father’s announcement that the federal government would use the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to house the most violent illegal alien deportees by suggesting that the president reopen another famous prison for the same purpose.

“Now this is a great idea. Maybe we should also reopen Alcatraz?!?!” Trump Jr. wrote.

Earlier Wednesday, the president made the Guantanamo Bay announcement.

“Today I’m also signing an executive order to instruct the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to begin preparing the 30,000-person migrant facility at Guantanamo Bay,” Trump said in a clip posted to X.

“Most people don’t even know about it,” the president added. “We have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people. Some of them are so bad, we don’t even trust the countries to hold them because we don’t want them coming back. So we’re gonna send them out to Guantanamo.”

Trump Jr. d the 30-second clip of his father’s announcement.

Now this is a great idea. Maybe we should also reopen Alcatraz?!?! https://t.co/70dUlZVHvA

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 30, 2025

So why might Trump Jr.’s “Alcatraz” comment qualify as a cheeky suggestion with a serious purpose?

Well, the notorious prison off the coast of San Francisco, California, setting for the 1979 blockbuster film “Escape from Alcatraz” starring legendary actor Clint Eastwood, had a reputation as an inescapable maximum-security facility.

The U.S. National Park Service, however, currently operates Alcatraz as a tourist attraction. It has not housed prisoners since 1963, when Attorney General Robert Kennedy ordered it permanently closed.

Thus, it would be ironic (and highly unlikely) if an administration that potentially will include Kennedy’s son, Secretary of Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., were to reopen the prison.

Trump Jr., therefore, almost certainly did not mean his comment literally, but he did mean to signal the administration’s seriousness.

For one thing, the president has wasted no time in commencing his long-promised mass-deportation operation. Border czar Tom Homan and the brave Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have taken the lead.

Moreover, Trump has Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem in place to faithfully execute his order.

Above all, remember: The president does nothing without a purpose.

Recall, for instance, that in September ICE gave Congress data regarding illegal migrants who had criminal convictions and pending charges. The total number of undetained migrants who fit that description approached 650,000.

“Those include 62,231 convicted of assault, 14,301 convicted of burglary, 56,533 with drug convictions and 13,099 convicted of homicide. An additional 2,521 have kidnapping convictions and 15,811 have sexual assault convictions,” Fox News reported at the time.

Note the more than 13,000 homicide convictions and nearly 16,000 sexual assault convictions. Did Trump not say for months on the campaign trail that he would rid the country of illegal alien murderers and rapists? That number looks awfully close to 30,000.

Trump said that he intends to use Guantanamo as a detention site for the worst of the worst. In light of the math, he almost certainly has those roughly 30,000 convicted murderers and rapists in mind.

Thus, he probably will not reopen Alcatraz. But Trump Jr.’s comment left no doubt as to the administration’s seriousness. The president would use that once-notorious prison if he needed it.

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