Too Big a Flaw to not be a Feature: Biased Implementation of the First Step Act (FSA).

The article focuses on the biased implementation of the First Step Act (FSA), a federal criminal justice reform law intended to reduce sentences through programming credits. It highlights that over 20% of inmates in the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) are non-U.S. citizens, many of whom have been systematically denied FSA benefits through the BOP’s collaboration with Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE). This collaboration involves misclassifying detainers or ICE opinions as final orders of deportation—an official exclusion under the FSA—thereby unlawfully extending incarceration for thousands of non-citizen inmates. The article argues this practice effectively denies these inmates their legal rights and maintains prison populations and staffing levels, suggesting the bias is intentional rather than accidental.