Rep. Fred Keller, R-Penn., told Newsmax TV on Thursday that the federal Bureau of Prisons should order a halt on all prisoner transfers during the coronavirus outbreak after an inmate at a Pennsylvania prison tested positive for the virus.
The congressman recently introduced the PANDEMIC Act of 2020, which would halt the transportation of inmates in the federal Bureau of Prisons system during the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.
Keller told “American Agenda” that despite the stay-at-home order in many states, “the Bureau of Prisons is still moving inmates between locations, and sometimes across the country, and we just think that it’s within their… authority to stop this. However, the director of the Bureau of Prisons in Washington, D.C. said that they needed legislation, and that only came after they had tried to pass the buck a couple times to the Marshal Service and the Department of Justice.”
The congressman said, “we’re just covering all the bases with this legislation, if they’re not going to do it or they want to try and continue to pass the buck, we’re just trying to stop that and not leaving any stone unturned when it comes to making sure that we don’t transport… the virus from location to location.”
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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