Here Are the Facts About Trump’s ‘Zero Tolerance’ Immigration Policy
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By now, you’ve seen the photos of families crying at the U.S. Border, scrolled through the social media posts urging you to help, and possibly heard the disturbing audio that claims to capture children sobbing shortly after they’ve been separated from their parents at an immigration detention center. Yet you still might not fully comprehend the scope of the situation. Is there an actual policy that allows this to happen? Is it legal? Who is responsible?
The short of it: The current administration is separating families.
In April, the Trump administration took an unprecedented step and put in place a “zero tolerance” immigration policy calling for the prosecution of those who illegally enter the U.S. That policy, in the eyes of the administration, includes separating minor children from their parents at the border, regardless of whether their parents are attempting to seek asylum — which is not illegal — or attempting to cross the border for the first time, which remains a misdemeanor crime.
In doing so, the administration has separated an estimated 2,000 children from their parents, with each not knowing where the other is sent, and leaving an already burdened immigration system in what can only be described as in shambles.
And Trump’s constituents — the American public — are making their feelings toward this policy well-known by protesting around the nation, with many calling for the practice to be rolled back immediately after seeing images of young children crying along the border as their parents are detained. That includes former first lady Laura Bush, who wrote an op-ed calling the separation of families “cruel,” and even first lady Melania Trump, who said in a statement she “hates to see” children torn from their parents and guardians.
As everyone seeks to gain answers while watching the calamity unfold in real time, several truths have been lost and falsehoods put forth. Glamour.com spoke to several experts to try and make sense of what one called a “manufactured crisis” that so far, is doing exactly what it was meant to do: Cause utter and complete chaos.
FACT: The Immigration Law Is Decades Old, but the Policy to Separate Children Is All Trump
PHOTO: SOPA Images
A woman talks to a relative, separated by a fence.
In April, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a policy change (which differs from a law change) that would instate a “zero tolerance policy” for those attempting to cross the border into the United States. Prior to this policy change, anyone attempting to cross the border illegally was processed, detained, and sent back home.
Additionally, prior to the change, those attempting to seek asylum in the U.S. under both the Bush and Obama administrations were given due process, or those traveling with minor children, were detained, interviewed, released back into the public and expected to return to court at a later date to be judged based on the merit of their “credible fear” interview.
However, Sessions, and the entire Trump Administration, have now chosen to criminally prosecute anyone attempting to cross the border.
Period.
Now, when a parent is detained, their child will be placed under the custody of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, who is then in charge of placing the child with a relative, sponsor or in a shelter. This, administration officials explained, is meant to deter people from attempting to cross the border in the first place.
“If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you as required by law,” Sessions said while speaking to law enforcement officials in Scottsdale, Arizona. “If you don’t like that, then don’t smuggle children over our border.”
But, Sessions is truly bending the limits of the law with his statement.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re seeking asylum, which is 100 percent lawful. They’re not treating it that way,” Alida Garcia, a former lawyer and current coalitions and policy director with FWD.US, an advocacy organization working for a more common sense immigration system, told Glamour. “So what we have is families that are arriving and many of these families are lawfully seeking asylum because [in their country] they’re in fear of gangs, they’re being persecuted in other ways, and they’re turning themselves over to border patrol because they’re trying to seek asylum. What this policy does is criminalize the act of a mother trying to save her child.”
FACT: The U.S. Is Violating the International Refugee Convention With Its Policies
PHOTO: LOREN ELLIOTT/Getty
A section of the US-Mexico border fence.
“Our policy is if you break the law, we will prosecute you,” Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said while testifying in front of a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing in May. “You have an option to go to a port of entry and not illegally cross into our country.”
And, to add more fuel to the confusion fire, on Sunday Nielsen tweeted, “This misreporting by Members, press & advocacy groups must stop. It is irresponsible and unproductive. As I have said many times before, if you are seeking asylum for your family, there is no reason to break the law and illegally cross between ports of entry.”
She doubled down on the those statements in Monday press briefing at the White House, saying “if you’re seeking asylum, go to a port of entry. You do not need to break the law of the United States to seek asylum.” When asked if people were being turned away from entry points, she said that was “incorrect.”
However, according to multiple reports, even from Garcia herself, those attempting to cross at official ports of entry, including bridges along the Texas border, are being told to turn back.
As The Intercept explained, immigrants who enter the United States, even by just a few inches, and share with immigration officials that they are afraid to return to their home nation have the right to request asylum and to be immediately processed, thanks to the Immigration and Nationality Act.
Once admitted, the asylum seekers then bear the burden of proof to show officials that by returning to their home nation they will be under great risk. If the person can prove, per the Immigration and Nationality Act that they are being persecuted based on “…race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion” they could be granted asylum.
However, instead, these same people are now being detained or are simply being told that there is no room for them in the United States and are being turned away.
“These directives failed to mention U.S. treaty obligations that prohibit the penalization of refugees for illegal entry or presence—protections created in the wake of World War II, after many nations had treated refugees who sought asylum in their countries or who had invalid travel documents as ‘illegal’ entrants,” the Human Rights First organization shared in a statement referencing the 2017 executive order by Trump that prioritized the prosecution of immigration offenses. “In fact, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General warned in 2015 that the referral of asylum seekers for criminal prosecution may violate U.S. obligations under the Refugee Convention and its Protocol.”
FACT: The Zero Tolerance Policy Could Damage Children for Life
PHOTO: Stacey Leasca
Children awaiting asylum at a San Diego border entry point eat lentil soup and day-old bagels for dinner.
This isn’t just a legal issue, but a human, and humane one too, according to medical professionals.
Dr. Colleen Kraft, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, explained to Glamour in a phone call while she made her way to the border, that the zero tolerance policy could have incredibly long lasting damage.
“Some real issues that we’re focusing on is that separating children when they are really young has irreparable harm,” Kraft said. She further explained, when children are taken away from their parents or support system that can create what is known as “toxic stress.”
“Very young children have this stress response, which increases their cortisol and their fight or flight hormones in response to fear,” Kraft explained. “When these children are exposed to scary things like traveling from their home countries to the U.S. or being separated from their parents, they remain with those chemicals high in their system. And they have no adult to buffer their stress, so they remain on red alert all the time.”
This, she said, can cause long-term damage including developmental delays in speech and the ability to develop social bonds. “If it continues, it can be a lifelong problem,” she said.
While visiting a government shelter for in Combes, Texas this spring, Kraft explained how she witnessed a small toddler forcefully beating her tiny fists on the play mat, sobbing uncontrollably. Her mother was nowhere to be seen because she had been taken elsewhere. (Because it’s against the Office of Refugee Resettlement policy, no adults were allowed to pick up and comfort the distressed child.) The event affected Kraft so deeply that she wrote an entire op-ed for the Los Angeles Times about it.
Kraft noted, “If there’s enough room to put kids in one place and parents in another, they have the space to house them together.”
FACT: Advocacy Groups Need More Help
PHOTO: Joe Raedle/Getty
Noelle Andrade (L), her mother Armida Hernandez protest the separation of children from their parents in front of the El Paso Processing Center.
To say that advocacy, governmental and volunteer organizations are stretched to their limits would be an understatement.
“They’re running out of space to house the parents, and then not being able to accommodate all the kids that are moved around the U.S. Then, you’re seeing operational challenges where [the Department of] Health and Human Services has so many people who are coming through their pipeline that they’re not prepared to handle,” Former Department of Homeland Security official Peter Boogaard explained to Pacific Standard.
Furthermore, people don’t know where to turn to help, and advocacy groups are even less sure of which direction to point people in.
“There’s a lot of people that contact us and saying, hey, we want to take in some of those children and we say, we’re not that agency. We’re not the agency that can help you with that,” Enrique Morones, founder and director of San Diego-based human rights organization Border Angels, told Glamour. Instead, what his organization does is both advocate for human rights and also pounds the pavement by dropping water and supplies at life-saving stations along the border.
But, in a single silver lining in this story, Morones says he’s witnessed an unprecedented level of human kindness in the wake of both the Trump presidency and with the implementation of this policy.
“When we started putting the water out in ‘96, we’d have groups of 30 or 40 people,” he said of the volunteer program to refill those life-saving stations. The Saturday after Trump was elected in 2016, Morones said, “we had 500.”
When asked if he ever felt like giving up, Morones immediately replied that he felt just the opposite. “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention. And I’ve never been more outraged. The children issue is just too much. It’s unbelievable.”
What’s Next in the Fight for More Humane Immigration Policies:
PHOTO: LEILA MACOR/Getty
A volunteer speaks with migrant families in a Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, Texas.
According to the Washington Post, the American Immigration Council filed a lawsuit in 2017 to challenge the “alleged efforts by CBP in California to prevent asylum seekers from applying.” According to Astrid Dominguez, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Border Rights Center, the 2017 suit is tied to the administration’s new “zero-tolerance” policy.
And, as Politifact reported, the United Nations human rights office has called for an end to the separation of families, noting that using immigration detention and family separation “as a deterrent runs counter to human rights standards and principles.”
On June 7, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced the “Keep Families Together Act,” which will do just as the name implies. So far, it has 49 cosponsors made up of Democrats and Independents.
“I know my dad and if I was at risk of dying, my father would make that journey to protect me,” Garcia explained when asked what she believed the biggest misconception of the current migrant crisis was. “And so I think, what the American public is missing is a little bit of empathy to understand that these are families living through immense crisis. These are families. These are women who have seen their husband killed, fathers who heard from gang members that their daughters will be raped and brought into their gangs. They’re doing what they can with the limited resources they have to try to save them. Seeking asylum is a lawful act.”
Garcia added, “I think if people took five minutes to listen to what they’re going through, they would want to speak with pride that America is a place that will welcome them with safety.”
Glamour reached out to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for a comment on the conditions of the children in shelters. Our calls and email were not returned.
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