The Trump administration will reportedly stop criminally prosecuting migrant families that cross the border illegally
- The Trump administration has suspended criminal prosecutions for migrant parents caught illegally crossing the US-Mexico border with their children, a senior US official told the Washington Post.
- Border Patrol agents have already been told to stop sending migrant parents to federal courthouses, according to the report. The White House hasn't commented on the report yet.
- The prosecutions had been mandatory under the administration's "zero tolerance" policy, which was unveiled in May.
The Trump administration will no longer criminally prosecute migrant parents who cross the US-Mexico border illegally with their children, a senior US official told the Washington Post on Thursday.
The White House hasn't commented on the report yet. The development came one day after President Donald Trump signed an executive order ending his administration's practice of separating migrant families while the parents faced criminal prosecution.
Border Patrol agents have already apparently been directed to stop sending migrant parents to federal courthouses. NBC News reported that the government dropped charges against 17 migrants, each of them parents.
"We're suspending prosecutions of adults who are members of family units until [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] can accelerate resource capability to allow us to maintain custody," the official told The Post.
The official said the suspension was necessary because ICE doesn't have enough space to detain all of the migrant families together, so they'll likely be released from custody while they await court hearings.
The prosecutions had been mandatory under the administration's "zero tolerance" policy, which was unveiled in May.
The move to halt the prosecutions would be a major reversal for Trump and his allies, who has repeatedly said the "zero tolerance" policy could not be undone without congressional action. Though the parents may be exempt from criminal prosecution for now, a senior Justice Department official told Politico that the policy was still in place.
Since criminal prosecution required that adults be transferred into the custody of the US Marshals, their children were transferred into the custody of the Health and Human Services department and placed on a completely separate legal track.
Since the policy's implementation, the family separations caused worldwide uproar after news outlets published countless stories about devastated and traumatized migrant children - some just months old - being placed in shelters across the country while their parents were detained separately or deported.