Zero Tolerance Family Separation: 5,500+ Children Separated at the Border
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The zero tolerance policy was the direct cause of mass family separations: parents were referred for criminal prosecution, children were taken to Office of Refugee Resettlement shelters, and the two systems — criminal justice and child welfare — did not have adequate mechanisms to track and reunite families. Senior administration officials including Chief of Staff John Kelly had discussed using family separation as a deterrent as early as 2017. Trump publicly and repeatedly denied a family separation policy existed while it was operating. A federal court ordered family reunification; the government struggled to comply, partly because adequate records had not been kept linking children to parents.
Overview
The administration designed a policy to take children away from their parents as a means of discouraging migration. Officials had discussed it as a deterrent for more than a year before announcing it. When it was operating, administration officials denied it existed. When it was reversed, records adequate to reunite the families had not been kept.
Five years later, more than 500 children were still separated. Some of their parents could not be found. They had been deported to Central America without their children, and the contact information had been lost.
The Design
The family separation policy was not an accidental consequence of the zero tolerance directive. Internal documents and public statements from 2017 confirm it was discussed as a deterrent. DHS Secretary Kelly said publicly in March 2017 that separating families was "a tough deterrent" being considered. The goal was to inflict enough suffering on families that others would not attempt to cross.
This is the stated purpose. The policy was designed to cause suffering to achieve a deterrent effect.
The Denial
When separation was operating at scale — thousands of children processed, transferred to ORR shelters, separated from their parents across the border — DHS Secretary Nielsen told a press conference she was "not familiar with" reports of children being separated. The statement was false. The separations were occurring in every border sector. The government's own records documented them.
Trump simultaneously told the press the separations were the Democrats' policy, not his. Sessions cited Romans 13 in defense of the directive he had signed.
The Records Failure
When a federal court ordered reunification, the government could not comply on schedule because adequate records linking children to parents had not been maintained. The criminal prosecution system and the child welfare system were not designed to work together and had not been integrated before the policy was implemented.
Parents were deported before reunification could happen. Some had their children's contact information, some did not. Government lawyers were eventually unable to locate the parents of more than 500 children.
No one was held accountable for the failure to maintain records. The children remained separated.
Timeline
Sequence of events
March 1, 2017
DHS Kelly publicly mentions family separation as deterrent
DHS Secretary Kelly tells reporters that separating children from parents at the border is 'a tough deterrent' being considered. Internal discussions about using family separation as immigration policy begin more than a year before formal announcement.
April 6, 2018
Sessions announces zero tolerance — separations begin at scale
AG Sessions formally announces zero tolerance policy directing prosecution of all illegal border crossings. Because children cannot be held in criminal detention, separations begin systematically. By June, more than 2,300 children have been separated.
June 14, 2018
DHS Nielsen denies separation policy exists
DHS Secretary Nielsen states at a press conference she is 'not familiar with' reports of family separations and denies a policy exists. Thousands of children are separated at this time. The statement is false.
June 20, 2018
Trump signs executive order reversing policy — acknowledges it existed
After sustained public pressure and bipartisan Congressional outrage, Trump signs an executive order directing families to be kept together. The order acknowledges the separation policy had been operating. A federal court had already ruled the separations unlawful in Ms. L. v. ICE.
June 26, 2018
Federal court orders reunification — 30 days for under-5, 45 for others
Federal Judge Dana Sabraw orders full reunification of all separated families, with 30-day deadline for children under 5 and 45 days for older children. The government misses the deadlines; records linking children to parents are inadequate.
October 30, 2020
Lawyers cannot find parents of 545 separated children
Court filings reveal that government lawyers cannot locate the parents of at least 545 separated children. Many parents were deported without their children. Contact information was not collected or was lost. The reunification process is still ongoing.
Sources
- ↑ Hundreds of Immigrant Children Have Been Taken From Parents at U.S. Border — The New York Times
- ↑ Trump officials talked of using family separation as deterrent in 2017 — The Washington Post
- ↑ Separated families: More than 500 children still not reunited years later — The Associated Press
- ↑ Separated Children Placed in Office of Refugee Resettlement Care — HHS Office of Inspector General
Verification