News

With the change in administration in the United States there has been a lot of activity regarding extraditions to the United States. Mexico has sent a batch of 29 high-level narcotic traffickers to the US in the last week. Additionally, Attorney General Bondi put out a memorandum on February 5, 2025, which stated two principles. First, the US would focus on high-level traffickers instead of the low-level workers which has been the pattern for the last forty years. Second, the memo indicated that foreign persons would be sent back to their own country to serve their sentence. Although there is a treaty called the Council of Europe Treaty that allows for the early return to home countries of foreign citizens from the US. However, several countries are not part of this treaty, including Colombia. The memo itself does not outline how the principle is going to become practice, but the memo is attached as is this link to countries who participate in the Council of Europe treaty.

Countries who participate in the Council of Europe treaty

Memorandum by the Attorney General of the United States

FIRST STEP ACT CREDIT

          In 2018, the First Step Act became law and through this law a person in the Bureau of Prisons can earn up to 15 days a month good time for participating in programs if they are eligible.

          Persons extradited to the United States are generally eligible for First Step Act credit as long as there are no disqualifiers. One of the biggest disqualifiers that the Government tries to push is that the person is eligible for removal after their sentence. However, pursuant to the Government’s own Justice Manual, persons extradited into the United States are required to be admitted under “parole for special purposes” and thus are eligible for FSA credit. The one issue is when they are in the Bureau of Prisons, ICE (immigration) will approach them at some point in their sentence and ask if they want to waive an immigration hearing. The answer should always be NO until after being released from the BOP. Signing the waiver will result in FSA credit being revoked.

          Additionally, most attorneys are told that an extradited person has an immigration detainer by the Government. What the Government is talking about is an I-247a which is a request to hold for immigration purposes filed by a law enforcement officer. It is not a detainer and ICE has even said it is not a detainer in several cases when it was to their advantage. So, do not let an attorney waive your detention hearing based upon the belief that there is an ICE hold because the case law simply says this is not true.

          If you have questions about detainers or FSA credit feel free to contact me.