Sessions Announces Zero Tolerance Policy, Separating 2,816 Migrant Children from Parents

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announces the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy on May 7, 2018, mandating criminal prosecution of all adults crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, including asylum seekers. Because children cannot be held in federal criminal detention, the policy results in the systematic separation of children — including infants and toddlers — from their parents. In briefings to federal prosecutors, Sessions states: "We need to take away children." Senior adviser Stephen Miller, the architect of the policy, tells a White House meeting: "If we don't enforce this, it is the end of our country as we know it." In the six weeks before a federal court orders a halt, DHS separates 2,816 children from their parents. Hundreds of children are transported to shelters thousands of miles from the border; some are placed in foster care. The DHS Inspector General later finds the department is entirely unprepared to reunite separated families and that parents are deported without their children. As of 2023, hundreds of children remain unaccompanied, still separated from parents who cannot be located. The policy disproportionately affects Central American and Mexican families.