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Even before the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy went into effect in May, parents who crossed the border illegally ended up deported without the children they came with, according to a new report.
At least 228 children were left behind when their parents were removed after they crossed illegally together into the U.S. in April, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse of Syracuse University. That’s one month before Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions announced that the Department of Homeland Security would refer everyone caught crossing the border for prosecution, a policy that led to public outrage over family separations and adults deported without their children.
Though the administration has said that family separations had to occur for parents to go into federal criminal custody, TRAC found that only one parent of the 228 children was referred for prosecution.
“It would appear most separations through at least April of this year took place for entirely different reasons than the rationale the administration has given,” the report concludes.
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