Trump Now Says He Will Set Up Prisons That Defy Judges’ Legal Orders. Will Josh Riley Do Anything?
This afternoon, Sunday, May 4, 2025, Donald Trump declared that he is reopening Alcatraz as a new prison with the intention of keeping prisoners there in defiance of the orders of federal judges. Trump stated: "We will no longer be held hostage to criminals, thugs, and Judges that are afraid to do their job and allow us to remove criminals, who came into our Country illegally."
When President Trump says that he will no longer be “held hostage to” judges, what he’s saying is that he will no longer obey the orders of judges.
Trump has declared that the Judicial Branch of the United States federal government no longer has any authority to restrain his power as President.
That is a step that takes the United States beyond the “constitutional crisis” in which Donald Trump refuses to obey the US Supreme Court and other judicial courts, but claims that he is not defying the Judicial Branch’s role of reviewing actions of the Executive Branch.
We have now entered into a phase of constitutional breakdown.
Just this morning, when a reporter asked him whether he recognized that he is required give people in the United States the due process that the Constitution guarantees them, Donald Trump responded by saying, “I don’t know.” Every middle school student in America knows the answer to that question. The President, like all other government officials in the USA, must obey the Constitution. Donald Trump didn’t understand this, and told the reporter that if the government had to give everyone sent to prison a fair trial first, it would be too inconvenient to obey the Constitution, because Trump intends to imprison millions of people. Asked specifically if he would obey the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing due process, Trump responded, “if you’re talking about that, then we’d have to have a million or two million or three million trials.”
Now, just hours after this astounding refusal to commit to obeying the Constitution, Donald Trump is saying that he will create a prison with the explicit purpose of holding people prisoner in defiance of the law.
The full statement made by Donald Trump this afternoon is as follows (all capitalizations that don’t follow English language standards are from Trump himself):
“REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ! For too long, America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat Criminal Offender, the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than Misery and Suffering. When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. No longer will we tolerate these Serial Offenders who spread filth, bloodshed, and mayhem on our streets. That is why, today, I am directing the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuild ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders. We will no longer be held hostage to criminals, thugs, and Judges that are afraid to do their job and allow us to remove criminals, who came into our Country illegally. The reopening of ALCATRAZ will serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE. We will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
First, let’s address the distortions in this statement from Trump.
There is no widespread “mayhem on our streets”. Crime is at historically low levels in the United States. There was a short period of increase in criminal activity that began during Donald Trump’s first presidency, but then that brief increase in crime went away during Joe Biden’s presidency. So, there is no crisis of crime, no increase in “dangerous criminals” that justifies opening massive new prisons.
Judicial courts already lock up dangerous criminals in prisons that already exist. This happens through a system of due process, established under the Constitution, that ensures that innocent people are not punished for crimes they did not commit. In the United States, people have a right to a fair trial before a jury of their peers before they are punished for any serious crime. That legal requirement is guaranteed in the Bill of Rights in the Constitution. For as long as the USA is a constitutional democracy, observing requirements for legal due process are not optional.
The President and the rest of the Executive Branch are not “held hostage” to judges. The President and the Executive Branch are required to obey the Constitution and follow the law. It is incoherent to say that a new prison specifically set up to evade the Constitution and laws establishing to terms of fair trials will be a “symbol of Law”. If Donald Trump reopens Alcatraz as a prison that holds people prisoner even when judges have ordered those people to be set free from prison, Alcatraz will become a symbol of the lawlessness, disorder, and injustice of the fascist government of Donald Trump.
It is not the job of judges to allow Donald Trump to deport or imprison people Trump accuses of being criminals and in the United States illegally. It is the job of judges to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the United States. In just the three months that Donald Trump has been President, he has already been caught deporting and imprisoning large numbers of people even when those people have no criminal records, and are legally authorized to be in the United States. In some cases, Donald Trump has even deported and imprisoned US citizens without charging them with any crime. Donald Trump has even done this to children.
Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that people who criticize him are dangerous criminals. Trump has declared that journalists who write news articles he doesn’t approve of are dangerous criminals. Trump has stated that Americans who protest against his fascist government are criminals. We already know that when Donald Trump talks about “dangerous criminals”, he is talking about people who are in fact law-abiding, peaceful people.
Now, let’s turn to Congressman Josh Riley.
It is the job of Congressman Josh Riley to ensure that the United States Congress conducts oversight of Executive Branch activities and provides robust checks on the power of the President of the United States.
There is no reasonable question whether Donald Trump’s activities require new oversight and checks from Congress. It is the responsibility of Josh Riley to step forward and take action to address Donald Trump’s plans to create a new prison on the island of Alcatraz that is designed to imprison large numbers of people without any fair trial.
Though there is much to criticize about Donald Trump, this much has to be said for him: He does what he says he’s going to do, and he moves his plans forward, even on a Sunday afternoon.
Where was Josh Riley this Sunday afternoon?
It’s been six hours since the President of the United States declared that he is creating a new prison dedicated to holding people prisoner in defiance of legal orders from courts of law.
It’s been longer than that since Donald Trump said that he really doesn’t know that he has to obey the Constitution anymore.
Josh Riley has said nothing Today. Josh Riley has done nothing.
Donald Trump isn’t waiting until Monday morning to declare the Constitution of the United States of America. What is Congressman Josh Riley waiting for?
How long will it take for Josh Riley even to issue a comment about what happened today?
When Donald Trump sent hundreds of men to a concentration camp in El Salvador in defiance of the orders of a federal court, and then in defiance of the orders of the Supreme Court of the United States, it took Josh Riley weeks even to decide to issue a short statement criticizing what Trump did. Then, Congressman Riley followed up that statement with absolutely no action to confront Donald Trump and force him to obey the law.
Will Josh Riley even bother to issue a statement this time?
This afternoon, after Donald Trump declared that he doesn’t know that he has to obey the Constitution, Josh Riley logged on to X, the right wing social media platform owned and controlled by Elon Musk. Josh Riley made a short post declaring that he enjoyed going to the Friends of the Tompkins County Library book sale. He posted a picture of himself showing a book to a cute little kid.
Books sure are good. I agree with that. It’s important to take time to support libraries, sure.
Today, though, something more important than that is going on.
What kind of country is that cute little kid going to grow up in if Congressman Josh Riley keeps ignoring Donald Trump’s creation of a system of concentration camps overseas, and now on US soil, degrading the Constitution of the United States into an irrelevant historical document with no power to guarantee our most basic liberties?
You can’t protect libraries if the Bill of Rights is no longer in effect, Josh.
I know I’m asking a lot of Josh Riley when I ask him to stand up and face down the threat of growing fascism attacks against freedom in the USA. It’s a big job.
It’s a job that Josh Riley should not have to take on alone. Every single one of us in New York’s 19th congressional district needs to be working on this. Just as Josh Riley can’t go on pretending that his job is just to do the ordinary duties of a U.S. Representative, delivering small scale constituent services, those of us who are Josh Riley’s constituents can’t go on like we have been either.
We are Josh Riley’s constituents in the sense that we constitute the district that Riley merely represents. When enough of us living in New York’s 19th congressional district decide that we care enough to demand action, and take action ourselves in resistance Donald Trump’s fascism, Josh Riley will take action.
For as long as we go about our daily business, acting as if everything is normal, Josh Riley will do the same, visiting book sales and doing photo ops with cute little kids.
To remix Mohandas K. Gandhi: We have to be the district that we want Josh Riley to represent.
It’s never too late for us to try.
Josh Riley didn’t confront Donald Trump’s big step toward discarding the Constitution today, but he can wake up tomorrow and decide to begin to look at the terrible, frightening things that he’s been avoiding.
We can do the same. We can decide to do more than we have the day before. It’s not going to be easy. The things that matter most rarely are.
