The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that sovereign immunity protected the government from such a suit.

In a letter to Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) Director Michael Carvajal, Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Jon Ossoff (D-GA) requested a report on the federal prison system's current personnel and recruitment procedures. Published on November 3, 2021, the request is intended to give Congress a clear picture of the system's condition.

On October 30, 2021, a federal employee union filed a lawsuit challenging President Biden's vaccine mandate for federal employees in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The case aims to invalidate the Executive Order and subsequent guidance from the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force (Task Force) and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has offered the COVID-19 vaccine to its entire workforce, but just 49 percent have accepted a vaccine as of last week. Meanwhile, other agencies are seeing their employees accept vaccines in larger numbers, causing members of Congress to question the Bureau of Prisons’ vaccine rollout plan. For example, as of last month, 72 percent of the Veterans Health Administration workforce had accepted the vaccine.

Across the board, federal law enforcement officers have spent the vast majority of 2020 dealing with unprecedented challenges. Rising tensions between the public and law enforcement and the increasing dangers of the COVID-19 pandemic have created a landscape that has been tremendously difficult to navigate. While many of the struggles and successes of our law enforcement officers have been well-covered in the news, the challenges faced by two agencies have been comparatively underreported: the Bureau of Prisons and U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services.

Congressman Fred Keller (R-PA) recently announced the creation of the bipartisan Bureau of Prisons (BOP) Reform Caucus. The BOP Caucus is meant to improve accountability and transparency, address systemic issues within the BOP system, and ensure the health and safety of corrections officers, staff, inmates, and the communities surrounding the prisons.