Transfer of Offenders To or From Foreign Countries (Program Statement 5140.42)

By Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., and Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA

Field	Value
Program Statement	5140.42
Subject	Transfer of Offenders To or From Foreign Countries
Effective / current edition	04-09-2019 (Change Notice CN-1). The underlying Program Statement is dated April 10, 2015, with “RULES EFFECTIVE: August 6, 2015” — PS 5140.42 at pp. 1–2
Change notices	CN-1, April 9, 2019, signed by Acting Director Hugh J. Hurwitz — PS 5140.42 at p. 1
Supersedes	PS 5140.40, Transfer of Offenders to or from Foreign Countries (08/04/11), rescinded — PS 5140.42 at p. 3
Governing statute	The Transfer Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 4100–4115. Key sections: § 4100 (scope and limitations), § 4102 (Attorney General’s authority), § 4107 (consent verification out of the U.S.), § 4106A (how the sentence is set after transfer into the U.S.). Delegation to the Bureau: 28 C.F.R. § 0.96b
28 C.F.R. anchor	Part 527, subpart E — “Transfer of Offenders to Foreign Countries,” §§ 527.40–527.48 (nine sections). PS 5140.42 reproduces this subpart in bold regulatory type with the Bureau’s implementing instructions in plain type — PS 5140.42 at p. 2
Related BP forms	BP-A0297 Transfer Inquiry · BP-A0301 Authorization to Release Confidential Information · BP-A0337 Inmate Load and Security Designation · BP-A0964 U.S. Case Summary — PS 5140.42 at p. 22. BOP does not post any of these four on its public forms page; the unit team supplies them
Official PDF	bop.gov/policy/progstat/5140_042_cn-1.pdf

Checked against the BOP policy set · 2026-09-06. Verification methodology: see our How We Verify page.

The International Prisoner Transfer Program — everyone inside calls it “treaty transfer” — lets a foreign national serving a U.S. federal sentence apply to finish that sentence in the country where they are a citizen, and lets an American sentenced abroad apply to come home. Program Statement 5140.42 is the Bureau of Prisons’ internal instruction to its own staff on the part of that process BOP handles: telling people the program exists, checking basic eligibility, assembling the application packet, and moving the person when the transfer is approved.

The decision is not the Bureau’s. BOP prepares and forwards; the Department of Justice decides whether the United States will consent; and the receiving country decides separately whether it will take its own citizen back. All three consents — the United States, the receiving country, and the person being transferred — must exist before anyone moves. Our plain-language companion page is the International Prisoner Transfer Treaty Program, which walks through how the program works from the family’s side; this page carries the rule.

The rule itself: international transfers

Everything in this section is transcribed from the Bureau’s own text at bop.gov/policy/progstat/5140_042_cn-1.pdf, with the page anchor for each passage.

The six basic requirements for any transfer

From the Background section, PS 5140.42 at p. 5 (transcribed verbatim). Note the Bureau’s own framing of the sentence that precedes them: “An inmate’s transfer is voluntary and must be approved by both the sentencing and receiving country.”

Legislation establishing the prisoner transfer program provided the following basic requirement for all transfers:

– A transfer treaty must exist between the United States and the offender’s country. – The offender must be a citizen or national of the country to which he is seeking transfer. – The offender, the sentencing country, and the receiving country must all consent to the transfer, – Dual criminality must exist (the convicted offense must also be recognized as a crime in the receiving country), – The transferring offender must have his/her consent verified by a verifying officer at a consent verification hearing. – Transfer cannot occur if an appeal or collateral attack is pending upon the conviction or sentence.

Immediately after that list, the same page carries the single most important sentence on this page for anyone deciding whether it is worth applying:

Note: Although the prisoner does not have a right to transfer, a prisoner who is a citizen or national from a country having a transfer relationship with the United States and who has satisfied the applicable statutory and treaty requirements does have the right to apply and to be considered for transfer.

That is not the Bureau being cautious. It tracks the statute. 18 U.S.C. § 4100(b) provides that “An offender may be transferred from the United States pursuant to this chapter only to a country of which the offender is a citizen or national,” that “Only an offender who is a citizen or national of the United States may be transferred to the United States,” and that “An offender may be transferred to or from the United States only with the offender’s consent, and only if the offense for which the offender was sentenced satisfies the requirement of double criminality as defined in this chapter.” Subsection (c) is categorical: “An offender shall not be transferred to or from the United States if a proceeding by way of appeal or of collateral attack upon the conviction or sentence be pending.”

The limitations — when someone is not eligible

PS 5140.42 at pp. 6–8 reproduces 28 C.F.R. § 527.42 and then lists the Bureau’s implementing detail. Transcribed verbatim from p. 7 (subparagraph (f) continues onto p. 8):

An inmate may not be eligible for return to his/her country of citizenship for service of the sentence or commitment imposed in a United States court when:

(a) The inmate is from a country with which the United States does not have a transfer treaty relationship. Staff are still required to inform these inmates of the program during Admission and Orientation (A&O), to discuss the program with the inmate during initial classification and subsequent program reviews, and to document on the Inmate Activity Record “No current treaty exists between the United States and the foreign country.”

(b) The inmate has a pending appeal or collateral attack on the underlying criminal judgment or sentence. Once the appeal or collateral attack has been decided, the inmate is eligible to apply for transfer.

(c) The inmate has been convicted of conduct that is not recognized as a criminal offense in the receiving country. OEO is responsible for making the determination.

(d) The inmate is a Mexican citizen or national who is currently serving a sentence for committing an immigration offense, unless he/she is serving a sentence for multiple offenses and the immigration portion of the sentence has already been served.

(e) The inmate is a Mexican national who has become a domiciliary of the United States. Domiciliary status is a complex determination and is made by OEO.

(f) Although not requirements of the enabling transfer legislation or the transfer treaties, two additional situations could affect the eligibility of an inmate for transfer. Both situations are rare:

– The inmate is in custody for civil contempt. … – Inmates with an outstanding fine or unpaid restitution are eligible to apply for transfer. There is, however, a small class of transfer candidates who committed their offenses before November 1, 1987, and have had “committed fines” imposed by the sentencing court. …

Two clarifications the Bureau adds in its own text. On the Mexican immigration-offense bar, p. 7: “Important Note: This limitation only applies to Mexican citizens or nationals and should not be applied to transfer applicants from other countries. Common immigration offenses that preclude transfer are violations of 8 U.S.C. §§ 1323, 1324, 1325, 1326, 1327, and 1328. OEO should be consulted with any questions.” On committed fines, p. 8: such a person is “not eligible for transfer until the committed fine is paid, or until the court imposing the ‘committed fine’ gives its permission for the inmate to proceed with his/her transfer request. The Warden may request permission from the court imposing the ‘committed fine’ to proceed with the transfer process. ‘Committed fines’ are distinct from, and should not be confused with, fines courts have imposed in post-November 1, 1987 cases.”

The country-specific ineligibility list — the SENTRY coding rule

This is the operative screening list. When a case manager codes someone “ineligible” in SENTRY, this is the list being applied. Transcribed verbatim from PS 5140.42 at pp. 15–16. The first bullet is the text as amended by CN-1 in 2019, which is highlighted as an addition in the published PDF.

a. Ineligible. The Case Manager enters ITTXX INEL if any of the following apply (applicable country codes are inserted for the XX):

– The inmate has less than six months of the current sentence remaining to be served at the time of request for transfer (Hong Kong and Thailand require 12 months).

Note: The Council of Europe (COE) Convention and the Treaty with Hong Kong provides that these rules may be waived if exceptional circumstances exist. Exceptional circumstances are very rare and usually arise if the inmate is suffering from a life-threatening illness and there is a strong possibility he/she may die before completing the sentence. If you believe an exceptional circumstance exists, contact the Correctional Programs Branch, Central Office.

– The inmate has any pending proceedings, appeals, or collateral attacks on the underlying conviction or sentence. The judgment on the current conviction of sentence must be final.

– MEXICO: The inmate is serving a life or indeterminate sentence; or is serving a sentence(s) exclusively for Immigration Law Violations (SENTRY IIS Offense Codes 170, 171, 172, 173), unless the immigration offense is totally absorbed by another current sentence, the time served to date is equal to or greater than the sentence imposed for the immigration offense, and the immigration offense is not to be served consecutive to the sentences on the other offenses.

– CANADA, FRANCE, MARSHALL ISLANDS, MEXICO, MICRONESIA, PALAU, PANAMA, PERU, THAILAND, and TURKEY: Committed for a purely military offense (i.e., desertion).

– BOLIVIA: Convicted of an ordinary criminal offense in a court martial or a purely military offense (i.e., desertion).

– BOLIVIA, MARSHALL ISLANDS, MICRONESIA, PALAU, PANAMA, PERU, and TURKEY: Sentenced to the death penalty.

Note: Inmates who have committed a military offense can apply for treaty transfer if the treaty nation is a signatory to the COE Convention. However, restrictions may apply if the bilateral treaty is also applicable, as noted above, and the involved country chooses to proceed under the bilateral treaty instead of the COE Convention.

The three SENTRY codes a case manager can enter, and the four the Central Office enters, are set out at p. 15 using Canada (CA) as the worked example:

Who enters it	Group code	Assignment	Description
Institution staff	TICA	ITTCA INEL	ITTCA INELIGIBLE
Institution staff	TTCA	ITTCA INT	ITTCA INT IN TRTY TRANS
Institution staff	TNCA	ITTCA NO I	ITTCA NO INT TRTY TRANS
Central Office	TACA	ITTCA PEND	ITTCA US APPROVED, PENDING FC
Central Office	TACA	ITTCA APPR	ITTCA US/FC APPROVED, CVH CMP
Central Office	TDCA	ITTCA US D	ITTCA US DENIED TRTY TRANS
Central Office	TDCA	ITTCA FC D	ITTCA FC DENIED TRTY TRANS

“CVH CMP” means the consent verification hearing is complete. “FC” means foreign country. If you ask your case manager what your treaty-transfer code is, one of these seven is the answer, and the “XX” is replaced by your country’s two-letter code. Institution staff do not remove a code entered by the Central Office (p. 14).

The numbers and deadlines

Every figure below is transcribed from the passage cited. Nothing here is calculated, estimated, or predicted.

What	The Program Statement’s own words	Pin-cite
Minimum time left on the sentence when the request is made	“less than six months of the current sentence remaining to be served at the time of request for transfer (Hong Kong and Thailand require 12 months)”	PS 5140.42 at p. 15
Institution → Central Office, initial application	“forwarded to the Assistant Administrator, Correctional Programs Branch, within 60 calendar days of the inmate’s initial request”	p. 9
Institution → Central Office, reapplication	“institution staff submit the following documents to the Assistant Administrator, Correctional Programs Branch, within 60 calendar days of the inmate’s reapplication”	p. 11
Central Office → DOJ	“The application packet is forwarded to OEO within 10 working days of receipt in Central Office.”	p. 11
How long DOJ review takes	“can be extensive and may take up to 12 months to complete, depending on the responsiveness of the foreign government”	p. 11
Reapplying after a U.S. denial	“may normally reapply for transfer two years from the date of denial. The denial date is defined as the date on the OEO denial letter.”	p. 10
What the denial letter must say about reapplying	“informs the inmate of the right to reapply for transfer in two years if, at the time of the letter, at least two years remain on the sentence”	p. 11
Denied by the foreign country instead	an inmate “denied treaty transfer to his/her country of citizenship or nationality by the treaty nation (foreign country) may not reapply through the Bureau and must address the denial directly with the treaty nation”	p. 10
Parole Commission hearing after transfer into the U.S.	offenses on or after Nov. 1, 1987 — “must receive a hearing before the USPC within 180 days of entry into the United States, or as soon as practicable, per 18 U.S.C. § 4106A and 28 CFR § 2.68”	p. 20
Parole eligibility for pre-Guidelines offenses	“Inmates returning from treaty countries are, by law, immediately eligible for parole if they committed their offense before November 1, 1987.”	p. 20
Notice to the Parole Commission on arrival	“If, upon computation of sentence, it is revealed the inmate is within six months of release, institution staff send a prompt notification to the USPC via mail, email, or fax”	p. 20
Reporting cycle to DOJ	“a report as of June 30 and December 31 of each year” identifying returned U.S. citizens still in Bureau custody	p. 21

The notification rule — how you are supposed to hear about this at all

28 C.F.R. § 527.43 is a regulation, not just policy, and it is short. Verified through the eCFR:

Foreign national inmates will be notified about the International Prisoner Transfer Program and the procedures to follow to apply for transfer as follows:

(a) Through information provided in the institution’s admission and orientation program; and

(b) Through individual notice given to an inmate who is a citizen or national of a treaty nation. The notice must:

(1) Reiterate the availability of the transfer program;

(2) Provide the inmate with an opportunity to inquire about transfer to the country of which the inmate is a citizen or national; and

(3) Inform the inmates of the procedures set forth in this part.

The Bureau’s implementing instructions at PS 5140.42 at p. 8 put a document and a schedule behind that rule: “The treaty transfer process is initially addressed with the inmate during Admission and Orientation. The inmate indicates on a Transfer Inquiry (BP-A0297) that he/she was advised of the opportunity to inquire about transfer, and whether he/she is, or is not, interested in being transferred. The process is documented in the Central File prior to or upon completion of the inmate’s Initial Classification and readdressed at each subsequent program review.” And, critically: “An eligible inmate may request or decline a treaty transfer at any time during his/her incarceration.”

There is one consequence of consenting that never reverses. Same page: “18 U.S.C. § 4107 (b)(4) states that once the inmate’s consent has been verified at a consent verification hearing, it is irrevocable.” The statute says exactly that — the verifying officer must confirm the person understands that “his consent to transfer, once verified by the verifying officer, is irrevocable,” along with three other conditions: that only U.S. courts may modify or set aside the conviction or sentence; that “the sentence shall be carried out according to the laws of the country to which he is to be transferred and that those laws are subject to change”; and that if a court in the receiving country finds the transfer was not accomplished in accordance with that country’s treaty or laws, “he may be returned to the United States for the purpose of completing the sentence if the United States requests his return.”

The application packet

PS 5140.42 at pp. 9–10 lists what goes to the Central Office on an initial application. This is the checklist to work from:

– Memorandum signed by the Warden with the inmate’s name, register number, country of citizenship, Financial Responsibility Program status, and medical/mental health issues, when applicable. – Transfer Inquiry (BP-A0297). – Authorization to Release Confidential Information (BP-A0301). – U.S. Case Summary (BP-A0964). – Pre/Post-sentence Investigation Report(s) (for current offense(s)). – FBI Fingerprint Card with current photograph of inmate attached. – Current sentence computation. – Current Visiting and Contact List, and emergency contact information. – Certified Judgment(s) in a Criminal Case (JCC) (include amended orders for current offense(s)). – Proof of citizenship or nationality (copy of birth certificate or valid passport) if available.

On that last item the Bureau adds a note staff sometimes forget (p. 10): “Although individual countries may require a copy of a birth certificate before approving a transfer, the referral to Central Office should not be delayed due to the absence of a birth certificate. It is ultimately the responsibility of the home country to confirm the transfer applicant is a citizen or national.” A missing birth certificate is not a reason to sit on the packet.

The same page directs staff to tell the applicant to work the consular channel in parallel: “During the initial application process, unit team advise the inmate to contact the nearest consular office to inform them of his/her desire to be considered for treaty transfer. Foreign officials normally have documents for the inmate to complete and return to the local consulate so that the consular office can begin verification of citizenship or nationality and facilitate the processing of the inmate’s application with the United States as well as the home country.” A copy of the packet goes in section 2 of the Inmate Central File.

The reapplication packet is shorter, because DOJ keeps the originals: a memorandum with the prior denial date and any new information, a new BP-A0297, a current visiting and phone list, any new or amended sentencing documents, an OEO reapplication questionnaire completed by the inmate, and a progress report if available (p. 11). Signature authority on the reapplication memorandum is delegated to the Unit Manager.

Applied Insight — Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, Managing Director: The BP-A0297 is the whole ballgame and almost nobody treats it that way. It is the form on which you say interested or not interested, and it is the form that gets re-run at every program review. People decline it in year one — often because a lawyer has told them an appeal is coming, or because nobody explained that the receiving country administers the sentence under its own release laws — and then discover in year four that the SENTRY code still reads ITTXX NO I and nobody has asked them again. Two things follow. First, if your circumstances change, say so in writing on an Inmate Request to Staff and ask for a new BP-A0297; the policy says an eligible person “may request or decline a treaty transfer at any time during his/her incarceration” (p. 8). Second, ask what your CMA code is and get it in writing. A wrong INEL code — entered because a case manager saw a docket entry for a closed appeal, say — is invisible to you and dispositive in practice.

Who decides what — and why that distinction is the whole page

This is the part that gets misexplained everywhere else, so it is worth being exact.

The Bureau of Prisons notifies, screens for basic eligibility, builds the packet, enters the SENTRY codes, and physically moves the person. PS 5140.42 at p. 4 lists the Bureau’s tasks, including “Providing notice to foreign national prisoners about the existence of the transfer program and informing these inmates on how to apply for transfer” and “Determining if the prisoner requesting transfer satisfies the basic eligibility requirements.”

The Department of Justice decides whether the United States consents. The regulation says so directly — 28 C.F.R. § 527.45 provides that the Assistant Director, Correctional Programs Division “reviews the submitted material and forwards the application package to the Department of Justice for review,” and that “The Department of Justice notifies the inmate of the determinations made” (PS 5140.42 at p. 9). Within DOJ, the office that does this work is the International Prisoner Transfer Unit (IPTU). DOJ’s own program page states that “the program itself is administered by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)” and that “The transfer decision is a discretionary one based on the satisfaction of statutory and treaty requirements and is informed by internal guidelines that are applied to the unique facts of each case” (U.S. Dep’t of Justice, International Prisoner Transfer Program).

The receiving country decides separately, after DOJ approves. 28 C.F.R. § 527.46(a): “If the Department of Justice approves the transfer request, the treaty nation will be asked if it consents to the transfer of its citizen or national. The inmate will be informed of the determination made by the treaty nation” (PS 5140.42 at p. 12). If the treaty nation says no, there is no BOP appeal — the Program Statement says the person “may not reapply through the Bureau and must address the denial directly with the treaty nation, since the United States has already approved the transfer” (p. 10).

You decide last, at the consent verification hearing, and that decision is final. Under 18 U.S.C. § 4107, a U.S. magistrate judge (or a judge as defined in 28 U.S.C. § 451) must verify that consent is voluntary and given with full knowledge of the consequences, must advise you of your right to consult counsel, and must continue the proceeding if you want to talk to a lawyer first. The statute also directs that “The proceedings shall be taken down by a reporter or recorded by suitable sound recording equipment.” The Program Statement adds that OEO arranges the hearing with the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, and that if you have not retained counsel, a Federal public defender is arranged for you (p. 12).

What DOJ actually weighs

DOJ publishes its criteria. The published guidelines carry an explicit disclaimer, and it matters: “These guidelines do not constitute formal standards or regulations. Nor do they create or impose any legal requirements or mandates on the federal government or create or confer any legal rights for, or on, any individual” (U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Guidelines for the Evaluation of Transfer Requests Submitted by Foreign Nationals, n.1). With that caveat, DOJ says its Office of International Affairs “carefully analyzes and considers all pertinent information presented in the transfer application to assess: (1) the eligibility and compliance with applicable treaty requirements; (2) law enforcement needs, interests, and concerns; (3) the likelihood of social rehabilitation of the prisoner, if transferred; (4) whether the transfer will further the ends of justice; and (5) any compelling humanitarian concerns that directly impact the prisoner.”

Under the law-enforcement heading DOJ lists the seriousness of the offense, whether “the prisoner’s testimony or cooperation is needed against codefendants, in an ongoing investigation, before a grand jury or in a criminal trial,” whether “the prisoner has pending charges, detainers or other open cases, or investigations,” whether agents “require further debriefing,” and unpaid restitution — of which DOJ says: “The existence of court-ordered restitution is not a bar to transfer; however, the Department will consider unpaid restitution in evaluating the transfer request.” Under social rehabilitation it lists location of family and social ties, time spent in each country, acceptance of responsibility, criminal history, criminal ties to the receiving country, “conduct of the prisoner while incarcerated” (with “[s]erious or numerous infractions, especially those involving violence, drugs, weapons, and attempts to escape” weighing against transfer), whether the person has received a prior transfer, and dual nationality. On humanitarian grounds DOJ says it may transfer someone who “would not otherwise be a suitable candidate” — for example, terminal illness in its final stages — but that “[i]llnesses for which the prisoner is being or could be treated in the United States, or the advanced age of a parent, absent other circumstances, do not typically justify a transfer on humanitarian grounds.”

Read against the disciplinary record, that list explains a great deal about why applications are denied. It is not a scorecard and no one should treat it as one; DOJ says outright that the weight of each factor is “determined by the unique circumstances of each case.”

Whether a court can review a denial

Mostly no, with one narrow exception that matters if the country is Canada.

The general rule comes from Scalise v. Thornburgh, 891 F.2d 640 (7th Cir. 1989). The Seventh Circuit held that the Transfer Act supplies no standard a court could apply: “In the absence of any standards upon which this court could review the Attorney General’s discretionary authority … we conclude that Congress has provided no ‘meaningful standard’ for reviewing the Attorney General’s conduct and, as such, has committed these determinations to the Attorney General’s discretion.” The same decision rejected a due-process theory, holding that applicants “failed to show the ‘particularized standards or criteria’ necessary to establish the existence of a liberty interest in this context.”

The exception is Sluss v. U.S. Department of Justice, 898 F.3d 1242 (D.C. Cir. 2018). There the D.C. Circuit held that the treaty itself can supply the missing standard: Section 6 of the U.S.–Canada transfer treaty directs that “the authority of each Party shall bear in mind” all factors bearing on the “best interests of the Offender,” and the court held that the mandatory “shall” plus that directive gives a court something to review. But it described the resulting review as narrow to the point of near-nullity: “the court’s review is appropriately limited to ensuring that the Attorney General addressed the terms of Section 6, while allowing the exercise of broad discretion in determining whether to approve a transfer application,” and “[n]or does the court’s review reach the correctness of the Attorney General’s assessment of the factors considered or of the ultimate decision whether to transfer.” Sluss itself lost; the court affirmed dismissal.

The practical takeaway is not “sue.” It is that the reasons DOJ gives in its denial letter are the only meaningful record, and building a better record before the decision is worth far more than litigating after it.

What international transfer policy means for you

If you are the person inside: what you should have heard at A&O

You should have heard about this at Admission and Orientation, because a regulation says so. If you did not, that is worth writing down and raising — 28 C.F.R. § 527.43(a) is binding on the Bureau in a way the Program Statement alone is not. Our intake and A&O walkthrough covers what that session is supposed to include.

Four things to sort out early. First, your country. The Program Statement says the list of treaty nations is available to you in the institution law library and on TRULINCS (p. 6) — that language was added by CN-1 in 2019 specifically so people could look it up themselves. Second, your appeal posture. A pending direct appeal or a pending § 2255 motion is an absolute bar while it is pending, by statute; the judgment must be final. That is a real strategic fork, and it is one to talk through with counsel rather than guess at — see when a federal conviction becomes final. Third, your consulate. The policy directs staff to advise you to write to your embassy or consulate to start citizenship verification (p. 16). Do it; it runs in parallel and it is the step most often skipped. Fourth, your detainers. The policy is explicit at p. 17 that detainers or pending charges “do not preclude an inmate from applying,” but that you “should be advised to resolve any detainer or pending charge before applying,” because you “may be considered unsuitable until the detainer is removed or the pending charge is resolved.” Immigration detainers are treated differently: “Detainers lodged by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have no impact on the eligibility of a prisoner applying for transfer.” Background on detainers is on our detainers and Interstate Agreement page.

Two things nobody tells you until later. Your Financial Responsibility Program status goes in the Warden’s memorandum (p. 9), and unpaid restitution is a factor DOJ weighs. And your visiting list and emergency contacts go into the packet — DOJ reads family location as evidence about rehabilitation, so an out-of-date list is not a neutral omission.

If you are the family abroad

You are not a bystander in this process, but you are limited by the Privacy Act. DOJ states it “cannot provide information about individual prisoner transfer cases without a signed waiver of confidentiality from the prisoner,” and that “[t]o authorize the Department of Justice to discuss a case with an attorney, family member, or with others, including a Congressional representative, the prisoner needs to send a waiver to the IPTU” (What Prisoners And Families Can Do). Get the waiver signed and sent before you start making calls, not after.

What you can do without a waiver: DOJ says “Families are free to bring pertinent matters to the attention of the U.S. Department of Justice by writing to the IPTU,” at the International Prisoner Transfer Unit, Office of International Affairs, Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice, 1301 New York Avenue, NW, 3rd Floor, Washington, DC 20530. And you can do the consular legwork — most of the delay in these cases is the receiving country verifying nationality, and a family member who can walk documents into a consulate is worth months.

Set expectations honestly. The Bureau’s own text says the process “can be extensive and may take up to 12 months to complete, depending on the responsiveness of the foreign government” (p. 11), and that is after the packet leaves the institution, which itself has a 60-day window plus 10 working days at the Central Office. Then there is a hearing to schedule and a flight to arrange, and for security reasons “the inmate is not given the details, including the date of the transfer” (p. 12). A family that expects a date will be told nothing and will conclude something is wrong. Nothing is wrong; that is the design. Our general orientation for families is What Families Should Know About Federal Prison.

If you are counsel: international transfers

Three points shape how this fits into a post-conviction strategy.

Sequencing. 18 U.S.C. § 4100(c) bars transfer while an appeal or collateral attack is pending. The Bureau’s implementation adds that the applicant “should not apply for transfer until the appeal process or collateral attack has concluded” (p. 17), and that when a judgment becomes final, staff submit a memorandum, court documentation showing the appeal or attack was “dismissed, withdrawn, resolved, etc.,” an updated BP-A0297, and the packet (p. 18). A client weighing a treaty transfer against a § 2255 is making a real trade, and the post-conviction deadlines run on their own clock regardless of what the transfer application is doing. Do not let a transfer application quietly consume a limitations period.

The Mexico life-sentence problem. For a Mexican national serving a life or indeterminate sentence, the SENTRY rule at p. 15 codes the case ineligible, and DOJ’s published guidelines explain the treaty basis: the Mexican treaty requires the sentence have a “specified duration or [that] such a duration has subsequently been fixed by the appropriate administrative authorities,” so “[a] Mexican national sentenced in the United States to a term of life imprisonment must have his sentence commuted to a definite term of years by appropriate United States federal or state judicial authorities.” That is a clemency question before it is a transfer question — see commutation of sentence and the Bureau’s own petition for commutation procedure.

Counsel at the consent hearing. § 4107(c) directs the verifying officer to advise the offender of the right to consult counsel and to continue the proceeding if the offender wants to. The Program Statement adds that “When requested, the Warden allows counsel to interview the inmate before the hearing” (p. 12) and that OEO arranges a Federal public defender where counsel has not been retained. This is the last moment at which anything is reversible; the client should go into it understanding that the receiving country will administer the sentence under its own release laws, which may be better or worse than the U.S. calculation, and that the consent cannot be withdrawn afterward.

Coming the other way: Americans transferred back to the United States

The second half of the Program Statement covers the reverse direction, and the mechanics are different enough to be worth separating.

28 C.F.R. § 527.48 makes the Bureau responsible for “(a) Sending escorts to foreign countries to retrieve American national prisoners who have been approved for transfer to the United States and who have had their consent verified at the consent verification hearing specified in 18 U.S.C. § 4108; and (b) Making logistical arrangements for the transfer and coordinating with the United States Parole Commission for proceedings to determine how the sentence will be administered” (PS 5140.42 at p. 18).

That last clause is the one that surprises people: the sentence you come home with is not the sentence a U.S. judge imposed, and it is not simply the foreign sentence either. Under 18 U.S.C. § 4106A(b)(1)(A), “The United States Parole Commission shall, without unnecessary delay, determine a release date and a period and conditions of supervised release for an offender transferred to the United States to serve a sentence of imprisonment, as though the offender were convicted in a United States district court of a similar offense.” In doing so the Commission “shall consider — (i) any recommendation of the United States Probation Service, including any recommendation as to the applicable guideline range; and (ii) any documents provided by the transferring country.” There is a ceiling: “The combined periods of imprisonment and supervised release that result from such determination shall not exceed the term of imprisonment imposed by the foreign court on that offender.” And there is an appeal: “A determination by the United States Parole Commission under this subsection may be appealed to the United States court of appeals for the circuit in which the offender is imprisoned at the time of the determination of such Commission. Notice of appeal must be filed not later than 45 days after receipt of notice of such determination.”

That 45-day appeal window is short, it is statutory, and it is the single most consequential deadline on this page for a returning American. Section 4106A applies only to offenses committed on or after November 1, 1987; the Program Statement’s counterpart is at p. 20, which adds that people whose foreign offense predates that date are “by law, immediately eligible for parole,” and that the Commission “is permitted to determine a release date, and a period and conditions of supervised release, without an in-person parole hearing.”

The documentation the escorts must have before accepting custody is listed at p. 19, and one bullet matters enormously to the eventual computation:

– A statement (and a copy translated into English from the language of the country of origin if other than English), duly authenticated, detailing the offense for which the offender was convicted, the duration of the sentence, and the length of time already served. Credits to which the offender is entitled should be included – work done, good behavior, pretrial confinement, etc.

If that statement understates credits, the error travels. The Designation and Sentence Computation Center prepares the computation, “in most instances before his/her arrival in the United States” (p. 20), and our explainer on the Sentence Computation Manual covers how that arithmetic is done and where it goes wrong.

What changed with Program Statement 5140.42

PS 5140.42, dated April 10, 2015, with rules effective August 6, 2015, rescinded PS 5140.40 (08/04/11). Its own Summary of Changes at p. 3 lists four changes:

– Modifies Form BP-A0297, Transfer Inquiry, to include a list of possible ineligible criteria and requires a review and signature of the Unit Manager. – Inmates with pending appeals or collateral attacks for the underlying criminal judgment or sentence may not apply for transfer. – Provides clarification regarding dual citizenship, committed fines, and cases with detainers or pending charges. – The Office of Enforcement Operations (OEO) will inform inmates who are not appropriate for Treaty Transfer by letter indicating the reasons for denial.

Change Notice CN-1, April 9, 2019, then made three changes, all stated in its own header at p. 1:

1. Added to Section 3(a): “Inmates may access the list of participating countries in the institution’s law library and on TRULINCS.”
2. Removed France from the 12-month group. In the CN’s own words: “This CN also removes France as a country requiring 12 months remaining to serve on the current sentence to be eligible. French inmates are now eligible with 6 months or more remaining on the current sentence.” One wrinkle worth naming, because it is the kind of thing that produces arguments on a unit: the Change Notice’s cover page at p. 1 renders the amended bullet as “The inmate has less than 6 months remaining to be served at the time of request for transfer (Hong Kong and Thailand require 12 months),” while the amended bullet as it actually appears in the body of the policy at p. 15 — highlighted there as a CN-1 addition — reads “The inmate has less than six months of the current sentence remaining to be served at the time of request for transfer (Hong Kong and Thailand require 12 months).” The operative text is the one in the body. The threshold is the same six months either way; the body version makes clear it is measured against the current sentence.
3. Deleted the following from Section 10(3), struck through in the published policy: “In accordance with the Program Statement Patient Care, after arrival at the admission institution, staff arrange for the inmate to receive a complete physical examination, and advise the local USPO of the inmate’s arrival.” That paragraph appears with a line through it in the PDF and is no longer operative text.

What has changed around the Program Statement since 2019 is more consequential than what changed inside it.

The deciding office has moved and been renamed. PS 5140.42 refers throughout to “OEO,” the Office of Enforcement Operations. The Justice Manual states: “AUSAs and trial attorneys should note that effective September 2, 2018, the transfer program, which was previously part of the Office of Enforcement Operations (OEO), has been moved to the Office of International Affairs (OIA) in the Criminal Division” (Justice Manual § 9-35.020). DOJ’s current program page confirms the unit sits in OIA. The Program Statement — including CN-1, issued seven months after the move — was never updated to say so. Where the policy says “OEO,” read “the International Prisoner Transfer Unit, Office of International Affairs.”

The public URL in the Program Statement is dead. PS 5140.42 at pp. 4 and 6 twice directs the public to http://www.justice.gov/criminal/oeo/iptu for the list of participating countries. That address no longer resolves. The current page is justice.gov/criminal/criminal-oia/iptu, and the country list is at List of Participating Countries. If your law-library terminal is running an old copy of this policy, that broken link is why the country list appeared not to exist.

The count of treaty partners is a moving number. PS 5140.42 at p. 4 says the United States has “transfer treaty relationships with almost 80 countries,” a figure written for the 2015 edition. Check the current list on DOJ’s participating-countries page rather than relying on a number inside a policy document.

Cross-referenced policies have been reissued. The References list at pp. 21–22 cites P5100.08 (9/12/06), P5290.14 (4/3/03), P5500.11 Correctional Services Manual (8/29/14), P5540.06 Prisoner Transportation Manual (4/20/00), P5800.15 Correctional Systems Manual (1/1/09), P5880.30 Sentence Computation Manual/Old Law (9/8/99), and P6031.04 Patient Care (6/13/14). Several of those have been superseded — Patient Care is now PS 6031.06, and the Correctional Services Manual is now PS 5500.14. When a policy cites a companion by an old number, the substance usually survives in the successor, but the pin-cite does not.

Where people get stuck applying for a treaty transfer

Four problems recur. Each has a route, and the route matters more than the complaint.

“Nobody ever told me this program existed.” This is the most common and, unusually for a BOP grievance, it rests on a regulation rather than a Program Statement. 28 C.F.R. § 527.43 directs that foreign national inmates “will be notified” through A&O and through individual notice. Start with an Inmate Request to Staff — form BP-A0148, universally called a “cop-out” — to your case manager, asking (1) to be advised whether the United States has a transfer treaty relationship with your country, (2) for a BP-A0297 Transfer Inquiry to complete, and (3) for your current treaty-transfer CMA assignment in SENTRY. Cite § 527.43 by section number. See Request to Staff for how the form works.

The packet was never sent, or has been “in process” for a year. The policy sets a 60-calendar-day window from the initial request for the packet to reach the Assistant Administrator, Correctional Programs Branch (p. 9), and 10 working days from Central Office to DOJ (p. 11). Those are internal time frames in a Program Statement, not enforceable deadlines — but they are the Bureau’s own written standard, and naming them makes a request specific instead of vague. Cop-out first, to the case manager and separately to the Unit Manager, giving the date you signed the BP-A0297 and asking for the date the packet was forwarded. If that produces nothing, the formal ladder is the Administrative Remedy Program: BP-9 to the Warden, BP-10 to the Regional Director, BP-11 to the Office of National Inmate Appeals, under 28 C.F.R. part 542, subpart B. The clock is short — 28 C.F.R. § 542.14(a) sets “20 calendar days following the date on which the basis for the Request occurred,” subject to extension “[w]here the inmate demonstrates a valid reason for delay.” BOP publishes the BP-A0148 but not the BP-9, BP-10 or BP-11 forms; you get those from your unit team. See Administrative Remedy Program.

A SENTRY code says ineligible and it is wrong. This is the quiet killer, because the code is entered by staff, is not shown to you, and stops the process before an application exists. The most common causes are a closed appeal that still looks open in the record, a detainer that was lifted, or a country entry that does not match the passport. Ask in writing for your CMA assignment and for the basis of an INEL entry, and attach the document that disproves it — a docket sheet showing the mandate issued, a copy of the detainer withdrawal, the passport page. If the underlying record itself is wrong, a Freedom of Information Act or Privacy Act request is the route to see what the file actually says. Treaty consideration is supposed to be revisited “at subsequent program reviews and documented on the program review form” (p. 16), so your program review is a scheduled, recurring opportunity to correct it — use it.

Denied, and unsure what happens next. The two denials are not the same and the difference decides your next step. A U.S. denial comes by letter from DOJ, gives reasons, and normally carries a two-year wait before reapplying — with an important exception the policy spells out at p. 10: “Exceptions exist if temporary conditions preventing transfers have been satisfied (e.g., pending appeal was resolved, inmate who was needed to testify has done so, financial obligation has been satisfied). In such cases, the inmate is eligible to seek reconsideration of the earlier denial before the end of the two-year waiting period.” If the reason for denial was a condition that has now changed, say so and ask for reconsideration; do not wait out a clock that does not apply to you. A foreign-country denial has no BOP route at all — that one goes to the treaty nation directly, usually through your consulate.

Where the underlying problem is designation, sentence computation, medical care, or a First Step Act credit calculation rather than the transfer itself, the administrative-remedy path is necessary but rarely sufficient on its own. Those belong in a consult — see Federal Prison Consulting Services or contact us. Exhaustion also matters if court is ever a possibility: under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a), no action may be brought about prison conditions until available administrative remedies are exhausted. “Exhaustion” means completing every level of the internal grievance ladder, on time, before filing anything in court.

Related BOP policy on international transfers

The paired information page is the International Prisoner Transfer Treaty Program, which explains how the program works in plain language for families and links back here for the rule and the numbers.

Transfers that are not treaty transfers, and are governed by entirely different policies: the Federal Inmate Transfer Process for routine institution-to-institution moves, Unescorted Transfers and Voluntary Surrenders (PS 5140.43) for self-surrender and furlough transfers, and Transfer of a Prisoner to State Custody Prior to Release (PS 5140.44) for the state-custody track. For what actually happens on a bus or a plane, Travel Within the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Policies this one runs through: Unit Management and Program Review (PS 5321.09), because treaty status is revisited at every program review; Security Designation and Custody Classification (PS 5100.08), which the Bureau uses to designate a departure or admission institution; Detainers and the Correctional Systems Manual for the detainer problem; the Financial Responsibility Program for the restitution factor; and Inmate Legal Activities (PS 1315.08) for law-library access to the participating-country list.

Sentence questions that follow a transfer into the United States: the Sentence Computation Manual (PS 5880.28), Good Conduct Time (PS 5884.03), and First Step Act Time Credits (PS 5410.01) — with the caution that eligibility for federal credits after a foreign conviction is its own analysis and turns on the offense of conviction as translated into the U.S. computation. The Designation and Sentence Computation Center is where that arithmetic is done.

Where treaty transfer is not the answer, the alternatives are different routes: compassionate release / reduction in sentence (PS 5050.51), RDAP early release under § 3621(e) — which as a rule does not reach people with immigration detainers — and commutation of sentence, which is the necessary first step for a Mexican national serving life.

Frequently Asked Questions About International Transfers

Reviewed for legal accuracy by Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney·September 2026