AG: Kids will be separated from parents at the border
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions promised to prosecute and separate parents who smuggle their children illegally into the United States as he revealed more details about his “zero tolerance” approach to border enforcement.
“If you cross this border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you,” he said. “It’s that simple.”
Sessions made the announcement Monday during speeches in Scottsdale, before the Association of State Criminal Investigative Agencies, and in Calexico, where he toured the U.S.-Mexico border.
In Arizona, he unveiled his plan, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, to prosecute all individuals caught crossing the border illegally, saying his Department of Justice would take as many cases “as humanly possible” until they reached a 100 percent prosecution rate.
But he also confirmed long-rumored plans to go after parents who attempt to bring their children into the country illegally. Several media reports described that DHS was already separating children from their parents along some parts of the border.
Sessions’ Monday remarks made the new policy clear.
“If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you and that child will be separated from you as required by law,” Sessions said. “If you don’t like that, then don’t smuggle children over our border.”
In many instances, families have traveled together to the U.S. border to seek asylum. It’s also common to have parents entrust their children to a smuggler as a favor or for profit.
Most recently, when hundreds of Central American migrants in a caravan arrived at the border, volunteer lawyers were giving parents documents swearing that the children were theirs, and asking them not to be separated.
At the time, a DHS spokesman said the department doesn’t have a policy to separate families as a way to deter people from coming to the United States, but that it instead acted in the best interests of the children if they couldn’t certify the relationship between adults and children traveling together.
“Unfortunately, we have seen many instances where human traffickers have used children to cross the border to gain illegal entry to our country as they know they are unlikely to be detained,” said Tyler Houlton, DHS press secretary. “This is one of the very loopholes we would like to see Congress end in order to gain operational control of our border.”
Sessions’ announcement on family separations sparked immediate backlash from migrant-advocacy groups, as well as praise from groups advocating for lower immigration into the United States.
The Florence Project, which provides free legal and social services to migrants in detention centers, condemned the move, but said family separations are already taking place in Arizona, and it could become more widespread under this new policy.
The group said this announcement puts parents in a tough predicament: either staying together in their home countries facing tough living situations such as gang violence, or seek out safety but deal with months or years of separation from their children.
“No parent should have to make this impossible decision, and the U.S. government’s choice to actively pursue this policy as a means of deterrence is unconscionable,” said Laura St. John, the group’s legal director.
St. John said that even before Sessions’ announcement, the Florence Project already had worked on 135 cases of families being separated in Arizona this year. She added that the final tally is likely to be higher than in previous years, especially under this new policy.
In those instances, the adults were placed in detention centers to process their claims, while the children were placed in the care of the Office of Refugee Settlement, oftentimes navigating the U.S. legal system without legal counsel.
“We fear that expanded use of family separation will result in some parents accepting deportations out of desperation because they cannot bear the trauma of being separated from their children,” St. John added. “For some, this decision is a death sentence.”
Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a research group that favors tighter immigration enforcement, welcomed the announcement by Sessions.
Prosecuting everyone caught crossing the border without documents, including parents, will help deter adults with children from attempting to enter the country illegally, she said. Vaughan said parents with children are willing to make the dangerous trip to the U.S. border because until now they have been able to avoid “major consequences.”