The White House says President Donald Trump’s ‘zero-tolerance’ approach to prosecuting illegal immigrants is still the adminstration’s policy, even though U.S. Customs and Border Protection has stopped enforcing it.
The head of the agency said Monday that he has temporarily stopped referring adults for criminal prosecution after they cross the border illegally with children.
Commissioner Kevin McAleenan told reporters in Texas that he ordered prosecution referrals suspended within hours of President Trump’s executive order last week that stopped the practice of separating families.
McAleenan said the president’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy technically remains in effect, but no one can be prosecuted because children can’t legally be taken from their parents. They also can’t legally be housed in adult detention jails.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Monday afternoon that ‘this is a temporary solution. This isn’t going to last.’
Parents who cross the border illegally with children in tow are no longer facing criminal prosecution, according to the head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, because President Donald Trump has ordered an end to a policy of separating the kids from their parents
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Monday that the president’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy hasn’t changed despite a ‘temporary’ hiccup due to an obsolete law that she hopes Congress will fix quickly
More than 2,300 children, largely from Central American countries, have been separated inthe past few months from the adults who brought them across the U.S.-Mexico border; that number represents just 20 per cent of the minors who cross – with the other 80 per cent making ythe trip alone
President Trump, shown Monday at the White House with first lady Melania Trump and the king and queen of Jordan, wants illegal immigrant parents prosecuted but also wants a legal way to house their children while they await court hearings – something federal law won’t allow unless a deeply fractured Congress weighs in
Sanders demanded action from Congress, where Republicans in the majority are consumed by intramural squabbles.
‘This will only last a short amount of time because we’re going to run out of space,’ she said of the dwindling number of taxpayer-funded beds.
‘We’re not changing the policy. We’re simply out of resources,’ she declared.
A few hours earlier in Reno, Nevada, Attorney General Jeff Sessions suggested that his agency hasn’t backed off at all.
‘The president has made clear: we are going to continue to prosecute those adults who enter here illegally,’ Sessions told a convention of school resources officers, ‘but we are going to do everything in our power to avoid separating families.’
‘All federal agencies are working hard to accomplish that goal, especially to care for children,’ he said.
Customs and Border Protection is a sub-agency of the Homeland Security Department and doesn’t report to Sessions.
But CBP agents must refer cases for prosecution before the Justice Department can take them up.
McAleenan said he is working on a plan to resume prosecutions of illegal immigrant adults who arrive with children in tow.
Adults who arrive in the U.S. without children are still being prosecuted criminally
Attorney General Jeff Sessions also says the ‘zero tolerance’ policy is still in effect, but Customs and Border Patrol doesn’t report to him; CBP must refer illegal immigrants to the Justice Department before prosecutions can commence, and the agency’s head is now exempting parents
The White House insists that it must find a way to enforce existing laws while urging Congress to update them.
Sanders said Monday that the White House can’t ignore laws against border-jumping because of court-enforced limits on how long children can be housed in federal government shelters.
“Are we walking around making up laws? No. Because we’re not the Obama administration,’ she snapped at one reporter.
More than 2,300 children were separated from their families before the order last week that is causing chaos at the border as agents fiugre out how to implement it.
Meanwhile, House Republicans are weighing legislation aimed at addressing the uproar.
Congressional aides who spoke to the Associated Press say GOP lawmakers are eager to vote on a bill that would allow authorities to keep detained families together for longer than 20 days.
That’s a limit set by in 1997 by a judge whom Sessions’ Justice Department has already petitioned to reverse herself.
Sessions said Monday that the vast majority of children who cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally come without a grown-up, often as drug-cartel couriers or cash-cows for violent human smugglers.
‘Children have indeed borne much of the burden of our broken immigration system,” he said.
‘Get this: More than 80 per cent of the children crossing our borders are coming by themselves, without parents or guardians, often sent with a paid smuggler. We can only guess how many never make it to our border during that dangerous journey.’
The Trump administrtion’s position is that sealing the border with an impenetrable wall is the most humane solution because it will discourage Central Americans to migrate through the length of Mexico to the U.S.
Mexico’s immigration laws are generally far stricter than those in the United States.