President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he has signed an executive order aimed at bringing back mental institutions and asylums, arguing that decades of misguided policies have left severely mentally ill individuals abandoned on America’s streets.

Speaking during a press briefing highlighting his administration’s accomplishments, Trump didn’t mince words.

“[I] signed an executive order to bring back mental institutions and insane asylums,” Trump said. “We’re going to have to bring them back. Hate to build those suckers, but you’ve got to get the people off the streets.”

Trump pointed to his own upbringing in Queens, New York, recalling a large psychiatric facility known as Creedmoor. As a child, he noticed the barred windows and asked his mother why they were there.

“She told me, ‘People that are very sick are in that building,’” Trump said. “I’ll never forget — I don’t know if it’s still there, because they got rid of most of them.”

According to Trump, the closure of these facilities—driven largely by Democrat-run states—has had disastrous consequences.

“The Democrats in New York, they took them down, and the people live on the streets now,” he said. “That’s why you have a lot of the people in California and other places — they live in the streets.”

The president has been consistent on the issue. In an August 2025 interview with Daily Caller White House correspondent Reagan Reese, Trump was asked whether he would support reopening asylums for people with severe mental illness. His answer was unequivocal.

Trump explained that states like New York and California once had extensive mental health institutions but ultimately shut them down and released patients into society, citing cost concerns.

“They used to have them, and you never saw people like we have now,” Trump said. “And what happened is states like New York and California that had them — New York had a lot of them — they released them all into society because they couldn’t afford it. You know, it’s massively expensive.”

“But we had them,” he added. “They were all over New York.”

Trump’s executive order signals a sharp break from decades of left-wing policy that prioritized ideological theories over public safety, community stability, and basic human dignity. His argument is straightforward: abandoning the severely mentally ill to live and die on the streets isn’t compassion—it’s negligence.