In April 2020, then Attorney-General William Barr issued a memorandum to BOP Director Michael Carvajal to move federal prisoners to home detention under a state of emergency declared by the CARES Act. Barr explained, “We have to move with dispatch in using home confinement, where appropriate, to move vulnerable inmates out of these institutions.” The goal was to isolate medically vulnerable prisoners at home away from highly populated prisons. Since then, over 5,000 prisoners have been moved to home detention.
However, COVID cases have since declined, and Biden has been forced to reevaluate the policy. Some Congressmen are advocating that Biden grant clemency to the convicts currently at home, but others say the convicts should return to prison. According to the New York Times, Biden has made his decision: all federal inmates currently on home detention will return to federal prisons one month after the state of emergency is ended. When the state of emergency will end, however, is still uncertain.