Report: DHS, HHS officials blindsided by 'zero tolerance' border policy
Source: Politico
They say they didn’t plan for the spike in family separations because they learned of the policy only when the attorney general rolled it out.
By TED HESSON and LORRAINE WOELLERT 10/24/2018 08:00 AM EDT
Trump administration officials had no plans in place to deal with more than 2,600 migrant children separated from their parents at the border because the Justice Department gave them no advance notice of its “zero tolerance” policy, according to government investigators.
The report, by the GAO, offers the most complete account yet of the Trump administration’s implementation of a decision to criminally prosecute all adults suspected of crossing the southwest border, which created such an outcry that President Donald Trump effectively reversed it three months later.
Officials from the Homeland Security and HHS departments — the two agencies tasked with processing and maintaining custody of separated parents and children — told investigators they took no steps to plan for a spike in family separations because they learned of the new policy only when Attorney General Jeff Sessions rolled it out in April.
Under the policy, all suspected border-crossers referred to DOJ — including parents and asylum seekers — were prosecuted for illegal entry or reentry. The strategy, fully implemented in May with cooperation from DHS, led to thousands of family separations over a three-month span.
Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/24/dhs-hhs-zero-tolerance-family-separations-935340
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