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AP
Exclusive:
DOJ
rescinds
‘zero
tolerance’
immigration
rule
By
MICHAEL
BALSAMO
and
COLLEEN
LONG
apnews.com
WASHINGTON
- The
Justice
Department
rescinded
a
Trump-era
memo
that
established
a “zero
tolerance”
enforcement
policy
for
migrants
crossing
the
U.S.-Mexico
border
illegally,
which
resulted
in
thousands
of
family
separations.
Acting
Attorney
General
Monty
Wilkinson
issued
the new
memo to
federal
prosecutors
across
the
nation
on
Tuesday,
saying
the
department
would
return
to its
longstanding
previous
policy
and
instructing
prosecutors
to act
on the
merits
of
individual
cases.
“Consistent
with
this
longstanding
principle
of
making
individualized
assessments
in
criminal
cases, I
am
rescinding
—
effective
immediately
— the
policy
directive,”
Wilkinson
wrote.
Wilkinson
said the
department’s
principles
have
“long
emphasized
that
decisions
about
bringing
criminal
charges
should
involve
not only
a
determination
that a
federal
offense
has been
committed
and that
the
admissible
evidence
will
probably
be
sufficient
to
obtain
and
sustain
a
conviction,
but
should
also
take
into
account
other
individualized
factors,
including
personal
circumstances
and
criminal
history,
the
seriousness
of the
offense,
and the
probable
sentence
or other
consequences
that
would
result
from a
conviction.”
The
“zero
tolerance”
policy
meant
that any
adult
caught
crossing
the
border
illegally
would be
prosecuted
for
illegal
entry.
Because
children
cannot
be
jailed
with
their
family
members,
families
were
separated
and
children
were
taken
into
custody
by
Health
and
Human
Services,
which
manages
unaccompanied
children
at the
border.
While
the
rescinding
of “zero
tolerance”
is in
part
symbolic,
it
undoes
the
Trump
administration’s
massively
unpopular
policy
responsible
for the
separation
of more
than
5,500
children
from
their
parents
at the
U.S-Mexico
border.
Most
families
have not
been
prosecuted
under
zero
tolerance
since
2018,
when the
separations
were
halted,
though
separations
have
continued
on a
smaller
scale.
Practically,
the
ending
of the
policy
will
affect
mostly
single
men who
have
entered
the
country
illegally.
Prosecutions
had
dropped
sharply
after
the
Trump
administration
declared
a
pandemic-related
health
emergency
that
allows
them to
immediately
expel
Mexicans
and many
Central
Americans
without
applying
immigration
laws.
“While
policies
may
change,
our
mission
always
remains
the
same: to
seek
justice
under
the
law,”
Wilkinson
wrote in
the
memo,
which
was
obtained
by The
Associated
Press.
President
Joe
Biden
has
issued
an
executive
order to
undo
some of
Trump’s
restrictive
policies,
but the
previous
administration
has so
altered
the
immigration
landscape
that it
will
take
quite a
while to
untangle
all the
major
changes.
Some of
the
parents
separated
from
their
children
were
deported.
Advocates
for the
families
have
called
on Biden
to allow
those
families
to
reunite
in the
United
States.
Then-Attorney
General
Jeff
Sessions,
along
with
Trump
and
other
top
leaders
in his
administration,
were
bent on
curbing
immigration.
The
“zero
tolerance”
policy
was one
of
several
increasingly
restrictive
policies
aimed at
discouraging
migrants
from
coming
to the
Southern
border.
Trump’s
administration
also
vastly
reduced
the
number
of
refugees
allowed
into the
U.S. and
all but
halted
asylum
at the
border,
through
a
combination
of
executive
orders
and
regulation
changes.
The
policy
was a
disaster;
there
was no
system
created
to
reunite
children
with
their
families.
A report
from the
Justice
Department’s
inspector
general,
released
earlier
this
month,
found
that the
policy
led to a
$227
million
funding
shortfall.
Children
suffered
lasting
emotional
damage
from the
separations,
and the
policy
was
criticized
as
grossly
inhumane
by world
leaders.
The
policy
began
April 6,
2018,
under an
executive
order
that was
issued
without
warning
to other
federal
agencies
that
would
have to
manage
the
policy,
including
the U.S.
Marshals
Service
and
Health
and
Human
Services.
It was
halted
June 20,
2018. A
federal
judge
ordered
the
families
to be
reunited.
The
watchdog
report
also
found
that
Sessions
and
other
top
officials
knew the
children
would be
separated
under
the
policy
and
encouraged
it.
Justice
officials
ignored
concerns
from
staff
about
the
rollout
and did
not
bother
to set
up a
system
to track
families
in order
to
reunite
them.
Some
children
are
still
separated.
___
Associated
Press
writer
Eric
Tucker
contributed
to this
report.
___
Follow
Balsamo
and Long
on
Twitter
at
https://twitter.com/MikeBalsamo1
and
https://twitter.com/ctlong1.
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