Dem Lawmaker Introduces Amendment To Block Trump From Using Alcatraz As An ICE Detention Center

4 months ago

During a House Appropriations Committee hearing in July, Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) introduced an amendment that would prevent President Trump from reopening Alcatraz as a detention center for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Transcript

00:00The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Quigley, is recognized for the purpose of an amendment.

00:07I have an amendment at the desk. I ask that the reading be dispensed with.

00:11Without objection, the reading of the amendment is dispensed with,

00:14and the gentleman is recognized for remarks on his amendment.

00:18Mr. Chairman, Alcatraz Prison was officially closed in March of 1963.

00:24It was not closed, as some suspect, due to repeated escape attempts,

00:30where the sheer amount of money then that it took to keep the prison open

00:34made it impossible to justify its operation.

00:39In 1959, the cost to house one prisoner at Alcatraz

00:44was over three times higher than for a comparable prison in Atlanta.

00:50At its closing, there was an estimated $3 to $5 million in deferred maintenance costs.

00:56In 1981, 20 years later, President Reagan considered reopening Alcatraz,

01:06but ultimately decided against it as his administration realized

01:10it lacked any adequate facilities for housing inmates

01:14and was much more valuable as a national park.

01:18Alcatraz Island generates approximately $60 million annually

01:23as it receives over 1 million visitors from across the world.

01:28Hugh Hurwitz, who served as acting director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons,

01:33said he thought the idea of reopening Alcatraz was a joke.

01:38Yet, the president's border czar has said that Alcatraz could be an option

01:43for addressing our border crisis.

01:46My friends on the other side of the aisle included a provision of this bill

01:50which would prohibit the National Park Service from using any federal funds

01:55to provide housing for undocumented immigrants.

01:58And I agree.

01:59We should not waste taxpayer dollars on reopening Alcatraz for use as a detention center

02:04or a prison.

02:06My amendment would prevent the transfer of Alcatraz from the National Park Service

02:12and any funding to make it operational as a detention facility either.

02:17It is estimated right now that cost, put it in working order,

02:21is around $2 billion and that it would cost around $500 a day

02:28to incorporate that cost to keep an inmate there.

02:32It would be cheaper to keep them at the Ritz, which is also a bad idea,

02:38and I encourage you to support this amendment.

02:46Thank the gentleman.

02:47The gentleman from Idaho, Mr. Simpsons, recognize and respond to the amendment.

02:52Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

02:54I don't know that I disagree with anything that the gentleman from Illinois said.

02:59What I do know is this, though, is the previous administration created a crisis

03:05at our border, a crisis.

03:08This administration is trying to clean it up,

03:11and I don't want to take any option off the table.

03:15It costs $500 a day to hold them there.

03:17I don't know.

03:17That's cheaper than the motels or putting them in in New York.

03:21So why would you want to limit?

03:23I don't know if it's a good idea or not.

03:24I really don't, but I'm not willing to take any option off the table.

03:31It may be that you look at it and go, man, this is just crazy.

03:34It might be.

03:34I don't know.

03:35So I would oppose this amendment and encourage my colleagues

03:40not to take options off the table of cleaning up the crisis

03:44that's been created by the previous administration,

03:46and I yield back the balance of my time.

03:49Thank you, gentlemen.

03:49The gentleman from Maine is recognized to address the amendment.

03:55Thank you, Mr. Chair.

03:56I thank the gentleman from Illinois for his excellent amendment,

04:00and I do appreciate the chair's thought that maybe turning Alcatraz back into a prison is a dumb idea,

04:07so I appreciate your acknowledgement of that.

04:09But I do have to say that any time one of this administration's dumb ideas comes up,

04:17generally the defense of it from the other side is,

04:20oh, there's been a crisis at the border, and we're just going to have to do this because you guys did that.

04:25So I'm not going to debate the crisis at the border.

04:28That's not the subcommittee we're on today.

04:30But I do want to clarify, the president's plan is not to turn this into a border detention center.

04:36The president's plan is to turn this back into a prison,

04:40like a real prison that you go to when you break the law.

04:43You break into someone's house or you commit a murder.

04:45This is yet another prison.

04:47So on the face of it, I wish that we could just all say,

04:51this is just stupid.

04:53We're the Appropriations Committee.

04:56This would cost $2 billion.

04:58This prison was closed in 1963.

05:01At the time when this prison was still operating, it required something like a million gallons of water

05:11had to be transported out to this island just to maintain the prisoners.

05:17Yeah, a million gallons of water per week had to be shipped to the prison.

05:20So that's just one of the many costs of operating a prison like this.

05:24It's deeply impractical.

05:26It's now best used as a national park.

05:31I think it must be a lot of fun to go visit there and see what it looked like,

05:35to see this prison on an island and to see the celebrated Alcatraz that no one could ever escape from, allegedly.

05:42And it belongs in the National Park Service.

05:46$2 billion.

05:47This is the administration that has talked us to death over fiscal responsibility

05:52about cutting waste, fraud, and abuse.

05:54How could you not say that was going to be waste, fraud, and abuse?

05:58And just to put it into context,

06:01$2 billion is exactly what the administration put into their allocation for the national parks.

06:07So they're willing to spend as much on converting this back to the prison

06:11as they do on all of our national parks.

06:16So if we're going to free up this kind of money,

06:19can we just put it into the national parks?

06:21I think they could greatly benefit from that, particularly after this bill.

06:24That we're debating today cut the National Park Service by $213 million.

06:29That the Big Uli bill rescinded $267 million per park staffing.

06:37And that we haven't approved the Great American Art Doors Act,

06:39so we don't have that long-term investment in capital needs in our parks.

06:44All of you either represent a national park, care about a national park,

06:47and know that every one of them has great needs.

06:51The staffing has already been cut,

06:53and there's not enough staffing this summer to meet the need of all the visitors who want to visit our parks.

06:59So could we just go back to saying,

07:01this is a dumb idea,

07:03this is a misuse of $2 billion.

07:06We want to be the Appropriations Committee that talks about waste, fraud, and abuse,

07:10that only applauds and allows for good ideas.

07:15And we want to support this amendment that removes the possibility of turning Alcatraz back into a prison.

07:22So I encourage you all to support Mr. Quigley's amendment, and I yield back.

07:26Thank you, gentlelady.

07:28Are there other members wishing to address the amendment?

07:32Seeing none, the gentleman is recognized for one minute to close.

07:37Mr. Chairman, I suspect that someone tested the word Alcatraz,

07:41and it came back as badass, right?

07:45And we want to get tough on crime.

07:48I get it.

07:49So we're going to call what we do in Florida Alcatraz,

07:53or anything else that sounds tough, Alcatraz.

07:57But that doesn't mean using the real Alcatraz when it didn't make sense

08:02when John F. Kennedy was president to do it again.

08:07There are other maximum security prisons.

08:10It would be cheaper to build a new one any place in the United States

08:15rather than to reopen Alcatraz.

08:18The extraordinary cost of its rehabilitation

08:22and the ongoing cost of having a prison on an island.

08:27So I respectfully ask for your support on this amendment.

08:34Thank you, gentlemen.

08:35The question is now on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Illinois.

08:39All those in favor say aye.

08:42Aye.

08:43All those opposed say no.

08:45No.

08:46Such enthusiasm on both sides.

08:49Opinion of the chair, the no's have it.

08:52And the amendment is not agreed to.

08:57And the amendment is not agreed to.

Dem Lawmaker Introduces Amendment To Block Trump From Using Alcatraz As An ICE Detention Center

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