The Justice Department terminated the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy on Tuesday, which led to the systematic separation of immigrant families across the border.
Interim Attorney General Monty Wilkinson’s memo to federal prosecutors said that the policy – which required that charges be brought in all cases referred to them for illegally entering the United States, regardless of individual circumstances – was inconsistent with individual circumstances. Department of Justice principles.
The decision to bring charges against someone must involve not only determining that a federal crime has been committed and that the evidence is likely to be sufficient to obtain a conviction, but also taking into account other factors, including personal circumstances and criminal history, the severity of the offense and the likely sentence or other consequences that would result from a conviction, Wilkinson said in the memo.
“While policies can change, our mission always remains the same: to seek justice before the law,” said Wilkinson.
In a statement, the Justice Department said the zero-tolerance policy runs counter to the old principle that federal prosecutors exercise judgment and make individual assessments in criminal cases.
“Today’s action restores prosecutors their traditional freedom to make collection decisions based on a careful review of the particular facts and circumstances of individual immigration cases,” the statement added.
The Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy for 2018 required prosecuting anyone caught illegally crossing the border. In practice, from May 5 to June 20 of that year, it resulted in the separation of more than 3,000 children from their parents, who were referred to the Public Ministry for trial. The children, who were unable to go to jail with their parents, were considered unaccompanied minors and placed in the custody of the Refugee Resettlement Office.
Tuesday’s memo is largely symbolic; most immigrant families were not prosecuted according to policy after former President Donald Trump signed an executive order to hold families together after they were detained.
In practice, the order would affect single adult immigrants who were caught trying to cross the border, but even they will not be affected at the moment because a Trump era coronavirus pandemic policy continues to allow American authorities to immediately expel US immigrants in an effort to contain the spread of the virus. Immigrants captured at the border are quickly sent back to Mexico – and in some cases to their countries of origin by plane – without even a court hearing.
The Trump administration’s efforts to separate families on the border to prevent immigrants from crossing without authorization were quickly ridiculed and eventually almost all stopped, although some separations continued.
The lack of government record-keeping and planning has resulted in difficulties in identifying children separated in order to reunite them with their parents.
A report released on January 14 by the Justice Department’s inspector general found that Jeff Sessions, the then attorney general, and other department leaders did not effectively coordinate with government agencies that would be involved in prosecuting parents and caring for your children.
“We conclude that the Department’s unique focus on increasing immigration processes came at the expense of careful and appropriate consideration of the impact of processes by family unit and child separations,” the report said.