“Sessions’s directive to separate children from their parents is an unnecessarily cruel addition,” commented Congressmember Salud Carbajal on the new zero-tolerance policy Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Monday. The new policy will separate parents from children rather than keeping them together in detention centers.
Sessions also intends to prosecute 100 percent of individuals crossing the border illegally. Parents will be sent to federal court, while children will be sent to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, where 1,500 migrant children went missing last year after federal officials placed them in homes.
Previously, people caught would be returned to their native countries after pleading guilty. Now, individuals could face up to six months in prison.