After Mordechai Samet was sentenced to 27 years in prison for financial fraud, he could only see his children for short visits or, in rare cases, when he was allowed to attend one of their weddings. According to Mishpacha magazine, the father of 11 gave an anonymous, anguished interview several years ago, telling them, “I cannot bear to think of the pain I’m causing my family — my wife, my elderly parents, my children.”

But in 2020, thanks to a criminal justice reform law called the First Step Act, Samet was released almost a decade sooner than he expected.

Now, that First Step Act, whose passage Haredi leaders pushed for strongly, is under threat. Distinguishing himself from former president Donald Trump who proudly signed the legislation, Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said last month that if elected, he would work to repeal the law, which has helped thousands of prisoners get released.

“If you are in jail, you should serve your time,” the Florida governor said in an interview with conservative commentator Ben Shapiro. “The idea that they are releasing people who have not been rehabilitated early so that they can prey on people in our society, is a huge, huge mistake.”

The Haredi-run Tzedek Association played a vital role in drafting the First Step Act, and its efforts were recognized by Democrat and Republican leaders. When the bill was being considered, Satmar and other Hasidic sects also raised $2 million to support lobbying efforts in its favor, according to the New York Daily News.

“This is when you can change the future of hundreds of inmates in our community," a website asking for donations said at the time.

Trump signed the First Step Act in 2018 after it passed Congress with bipartisan support. The law expanded eligibility for people imprisoned in federal jails to be released early or placed under home confinement. Since it was enacted, more than 13,500 inmates across the country have been released, according to the Department of Justice.

Tzedek president Moshe Margaretten, who is from the Skver sect, told Forbes he was inspired to advocate for criminal justice reform after a 2009 trip to Otisville, a low-security men’s federal prison in New York. Known for its relatively high population of Jewish inmates, kosher vending machines, and weekly Shabbat services, Otisville was where Samet was imprisoned with, at certain times, dozens of other Haredi men.

DeSantis’s comments are already unnerving Haredi leaders. “I think DeSantis is misinformed,” said Ezra Friedlander, a lobbyist who represents many Haredi organizations at a state and federal level and helped advocate for the First Step Act. “We shouldn’t politicize an issue that most Americans agree about. Sometimes, when you split up a family and put someone in jail who poses no physical danger, there’s no benefit to that.” 

Still, Friedlander said he thinks DeSantis’s stance might change. “People say things in a primary battle that they sometimes take back upon closer reflection,” he said. 

During the 2016 presidential campaign, 57% of Republican voters in Boro Park, a major New York Hasidic neighborhood, voted for senator Ted Cruz in the primaries. In the general election, most voters there picked Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton. Boro Park residents overwhelmingly supported Trump again in 2020.

Responding to DeSantis’ comment, Trump’s campaign pointedly noted that, as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, congressmember DeSantis had voted for an early version of the First Step Act. By the time the final bill was up for a vote, though, DeSantis had resigned from Congress to focus on his gubernatorial campaign.

In addition to its work on the First Step Act, the Tzedek Association also advocates for individual convicts. Along with Aleph Institute, an organization associated with the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic sect, it has lobbied for presidential pardons on behalf of a number of Haredi prisoners. A 2021 report by the New York Times found that of the 238 total pardons and commutations that Trump granted during his term, 27 were for people supported by Aleph and Tzedek. Most of these people had been convicted of financial crimes.

The DeSantis and Trump campaigns did not immediately respond to Shtetl’s requests for comment.