NBC News reports that federal prosecutors who piloted the family separation policy at the border in 2017 apparently developed a “litmus test” to determine at what age it would be permissible to rip a child from their parent, as if that’s fine at a certain age. According to a memo in an unpublished report from the Department of Justice inspector general, agents were to see if the child could give their address, among other details. If the child could answer affirmatively, agents could presumably continue with separation.
“But the memo, prepared for John Bash, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, was never sent to Justice Department officials in Washington, according to a draft report from the department's inspector general obtained by NBC News,” the report said. When the Trump administration began widespread kidnapping under the official policy the next year, babies as young as four months old were taken. But far from showing a smidge of concern for children, the memo instead continued to confirm the administration’s callous cruelty.
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“The Jan. 7, 2018, memo from El Paso also indicates that neither the pilot program nor the zero-tolerance policy enacted across the southern border later that year was created with a plan to reunite families; instead, it expected that children would see their parents again when both were deported to their home countries,” Julia Ainsley and Jacob Soboroff continue in the report. Further watchdog reports would later confirm officials failed to track families they ripped apart, adding to the chaos officials had already created.
Nor was this “age test” established as any sort of preventative measure: the test was created because officials had already separated a number of extremely young children during the pilot, including 11 children under 1. One. “By mid-August 2017, the memo said, prosecutors realized that some children were too young to be separated and established a litmus test to determine which children were too young.” But the memo never made it to top Justice Department leaders, the inspector general said.
In fact, further findings from the inspector general’s report as reported by The New York Times revealed former attorney general Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III and his deputy Rod Rosenstein, were “a driving force” behind family separation—and intended to show no mercy.
The unpublished draft report said that when U.S. attorneys sought clarification on Sessions’ spring 2018 policy ordering the prosecution of parents who unlawfully crossed the border, both the attorney general and his deputy were ruthless. "We need to take away children,” Sessions reportedly said. Rosenstein ”went even further in a second call about a week later,” The Times report continued, “telling the five prosecutors that it did not matter how young the children were.”
Reacting to The Times report, Nevada U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen said in a statement received by Daily Kos that this was a plot to institute one of the cruelest government policies in modern American history. “In its quest to send a message to immigrant families fleeing violence, the administration implemented a cruel immigration agenda with no plan for reuniting families or ensuring children were safe while in the government’s care,” she said.
Government officials were repeatedly warned about the psychological horrors that would be inflicted on a child separated from his or her parent. The calls were clear and urgent, and they did it anyway. They took thousands of children. “The DOJ knew of the dangers and trauma family separation would create. They just chose to look away,” tweeted Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES). “The more we learn about the atrocities committed under this administration the harder it is to stomach it. They knew what they were doing.”