Top Justice Department officials, including U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Rod Rosenstein, helped run the Trump administration’s policy, which resulted in children being separated from their parents, a draft Inspector General’s report shows.
The “zero tolerance” policy eventually separated nearly 1,000,000 children from their parents for crossing the border illegally, a crime committed in the first case.
Sessions announced the policy in April 2018, saying that every immigrant who crossed the U.S. border illegally would be prosecuted, including parents with young children. As a result, the children were separated from their parents and there was a great uproar among the people.
According to a draft report by Inspector General of the Department of Justice Michael Horowitz, in May 2018, five U.S. Prosecutors forced Sessions and Rosenstein to clarify the order with a minimum age.
The New York Times detailed the first draft report. NBC News has reviewed the draft report, which has not been released to the public, and confirmed the details in the Times story.
The Times reported that “we need to take the children,” Sessions told plaintiffs in a conference call, noting participants, one participant added in a shorthand: “Don’t bring children in if you want to take care of them.” “Forgive people with children,” the report said.
In a second call about a week later, Rosenstein told the five plaintiffs that it did not matter how young the children were, and that government prosecutors should not refuse to prosecute two cases because the children were too young.
U.S. in the Western District of Texas. Attorney John Bush wrote immediately after calling his employee that “those two cases should not be dismissed,” referring to cases in his district that were denied the day before because the defendants were very young children, the report said. . The report states that Rosente was instructed that, according to the AG’s policy, the immigration procedure of adults in family units at the age of a child cannot be explicitly denied.
Horowitz’s draft report states that senior Justice Department officials were the “driving force” of the family’s various policies.
The report said Sessions and others knew the policy would result in family divorce, and they wanted it because they believed it would prevent illegal immigration.
The draft report states that “increasing legal action has been the sole focus of the department, especially at the expense of careful and effective implementation of the policy regarding the action of family-unit adults and the resulting different measures for children.”
The Homeland Security Department, then headed by Secretary Kirsten Nielsen, has so far taken most of the blame for the policy. But the report shows how Justice Department officials pursued the policy at meetings and instructed its lawyers to take legal action against all parents regardless of how young their children were.
Trump signed an executive order in June 2018 barring federal departments after widespread outrage.
NBC News previously reported that in early May 2018, Trump cabinet officials were asked by hand to show whether to proceed with the controversial policy called at a meeting they met in the White House Situation Room, and they said yes.
Nielsen put his hand down, but later signed a memo instructing DHS troopers to take all legal action to cross the border illegally, including parents who came with bikes.
The draft report also details the 2017 policy known as the “Pilot Program” for zero tolerance in El Paso. It has previously been revealed that children were separated from their parents before the Trump administration announced a “zero tolerance” policy.
Horowitz’s draft report states that in that program, a public prosecutor wrote to superiors with an alarm: “Now we hear that parents have breastfed their babies away,” adding, “I believe this until I look at duty.” Was not
“There are numerous factual errors and inaccuracies in the draft report that this article relied on,” Justice Department spokeswoman Alexa Vance told the Times.
“While the DOJ is responsible for the defendants ‘actions, they had no role in monitoring and caring for the defendants’ children,” he told the newspaper. “Ultimately, both the timing of this leak and the misleading content raise troubling questions about the motivation of those responsible for it.”
Sessions and Rosenstein then leave the Trump administration. Bash announced this week that he would retire and enter the private sector.
Trump administration officials claimed in 2018 that separating children from their families was not its own policy, but was the result of cracking down on people entering the country illegally.
