Loyola Immigrant Justice Clinic Statement on Family Separations at Border

The Loyola Immigrant Justice Clinic at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles joins its colleagues in condemning the widespread family separations occurring along our southern border. Because of repeated misrepresentation of both fact and law by government spokespersons, the following points require clarification:

• In early May, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a policy of "zero tolerance" against individuals, including families with children, arriving at the southern border. This policy is new, entirely a creature of the current administration, and wholly within the executive branch's discretion.
• This new policy mandates criminal prosecution and incarceration of individuals for misdemeanor first-time unlawful entry. The new, discretionary policy implements incarceration for this misdemeanor. Incarceration is not a requirement of the law.
• It is this draconian policy of incarceration for a first-time misdemeanor offense that has resulted in the wholesale separation of parents and caregivers from their children, a policy condemned by the American Academy of Pediatrics because of the traumatic effects of separation and the long-term damage done to already vulnerable children. A secondary effect is the overcrowding of federal courts previously focused on prosecution crimes such as human trafficking and the illegal drug and weapons trade. 
• This policy operates in conjunction with ICE's "surge initiative," a policy of targeting the sponsors of children released from federal custody by the U.S. government into the custody of caregivers. The two operate together to promote the isolation of children from relative caregivers, and to prolong their detention and isolation. 
• These policies are a violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the standards contained with the the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and basic norms of humane conduct. They are a stark departure from past practices, and represent an effort to use children as a weapon to enforce the president's inhumane immigration agenda.