Ripped from Home: 3 Stories of Reimprisonment after COVID Release

By Marisol Orihuela

Over the pandemic, to help control the rapid spread of COVID throughout prisons, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) released thousands incarcerated individuals to a home confinement program.

To be eligible for home confinement, candidates had to be deemed a low public safety risk by BOP, meet specific qualifications and go through a rigorous vetting process.

Across the country people who qualified for the program began reentering their communities and reconnecting with their families. They found jobs, started educational programs, and became primary caregivers for children and elderly family members.

But just as they begin rebuilding meaningful lives with their loved ones, many are being ripped away from their homes, reimprisoned for minor infractions and without the basic process that the Supreme Court for decades has required for similar pre-release community programs.

BOP data that shows that as of late 2021, of the 289 people who were reimprisoned, approximately 230 people were sent back for violations like alcohol use, drug use, or other minor infractions.

Along with my co-counsel Professor Sarah Russell of Quinnipiac School of Law, I am representing three women who have been reimprisoned or are facing reimprisonment by the BOP. Each of these women are mothers. Each of them had secured jobs, furthered their education, and/or began the process of reestablishing family connections and reentering their communities.

None of these women received notice that they might be reimprisoned for allegedly violating home confinement. None of them had the opportunity to challenge, or explain, the BOP’s reason for reimprisonment, and none of them received a written decision explaining why they were being reimprisoned.

Virginia is a 35-year-old mother of a one-year-old baby and is the primary caretaker for her ailing father. She has a full-time job in construction and maintenance. Virginia was on home confinement for a year and a half before being reimprisoned in early February for one positive marijuana test.

Nordia is a 37-year-old mother of two young daughters who was able to get her daughter back from the foster care system when she returned home. She was working for a car services company and pursuing a cosmetology course five days a week when reimprisoned for stopping by an AT&T store to get her phone fixed. Nordia needed a working phone so that she could be reachable by the correction officers when they check on her, but that stop at “an unauthorized location” was considered a violation that sent her back to FCI Danbury. She has about six months left of her sentence.

Eva is a 44-year-old mother of one daughter and three stepchildren. She is the primary caregiver for her family, which includes her mother who is diabetic and her fiancé who has heart disease and an enlarged heart. Her daughter, now 15, was a victim of attempted rape a year ago, and will soon testify at her attackers sentencing. Eva was reimprisoned in summer 2021 for one positive marijuana test.

These three women paint a picture of an opaque Bureau of Prisons with unfettered power to reimprison from home confinement. They also demonstrate how arbitrary reimprisonment impacts more than the individual being imprisoned but wounds the children and the family members who depend on them.

On Friday, May 6th, a federal court will hear Virginia’s case. Her hearing will be the first federal hearing of its kind—to hold the BOP accountable to the law and ensure transparency of the reimprisonment process.

I will continue to keep you apprised of the plight of these three women as this fight continues.

Professor Marisol Orihuela