Trump administration U-turn over ‘zero-tolerance’ immigration policy
The separation of parents and children has drawn widespread condemnation.
A key element of Donald Trump’s zero-tolerance immigration policy has been scaled back amid a global uproar over the separation of more than 2,300 migrant families.
The move halts the practice of turning over parents to prosecutors for charges of illegally entering the country.
Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said that Mr Trump’s order to stop splitting immigrant families at the border required a temporary halt to prosecuting parents and guardians, unless they had criminal history or the child’s welfare was in question.
He insisted the White House’s zero-tolerance policy toward illegal entry remained intact.
Together, their remarks added to the nationwide confusion as mothers and fathers struggled to reunite families that were split up by the government and sometimes sent to different parts of the country.
Families are growing increasingly frustrated in trying to reunite with their children after weeks apart.
Addressing reporters in Texas, Mr McAleenan said he stopped sending cases of parents charged with illegally entering the country to prosecutors “within hours” after Mr Trump signed an executive order last week to cease the separations.
“We can work on a plan where adults who bring kids across, who violate our laws, who risk their lives at the border could be prosecuted without an extended separation from their children,” he said. “We’re looking at how to implement that now.”
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders stressed that the administration’s reversal was only temporary because the government is running out of resources.
“We’re going to run out of space,” she said. “We’re going to run out of resources to keep people together.”
Speaking at a school-safety conference in Reno, Mr Sessions cast the children as victims of a broken immigration system and urged Congress to act.
While hundreds of protesters rallied outside a hotel-casino, the attorney general said more than 80% of children crossing the border arrive alone, without parents or guardians.
HE said they are “often sent with a paid smuggler”.
“We can only guess how many never make it to our border during that dangerous journey,” he added.
