The Zero Tolerance Policy Separated 5,569 Children From Their Parents. Hundreds Were Never Reunited.

The policy was deliberate. Internal government documents obtained through litigation showed that the family separation policy was conceived as a deterrent — the explicit theory was that separating children from parents would discourage families from making the journey. Stephen Miller, who remains Trump's top immigration adviser in the second term, was the primary architect of the policy. DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen initially denied that family separation was a policy — then confirmed that it was. Chief of Staff John Kelly told reporters it was "a tough deterrent."

The administration had no database linking children to their parents. When courts ordered reunification — Judge Dana Sabraw of the Southern District of California found the separations violated the Constitution and ordered families reunified — the government struggled to locate parents. Many had already been deported without their children. Some had given up contact information that became out of date. The ACLU, which brought the lawsuit, was tasked by the court with helping locate families. As of the Biden administration's family reunification task force final report, it had located and reunified hundreds of children — but hundreds more could not be found. Some parents had been deported years earlier. Some had given up hope.

Sessions cited Romans 13 from the Bible — "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers" — as justification for the policy. When asked about the moral dimensions of separating children from parents, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said "it is very biblical to enforce the law." Former First Lady Laura Bush wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post calling it "cruel" and "immoral." The policy was ended by executive order after nationwide public outcry in June 2018 — but the children who had already been separated remained separated. In Trump's second term, family separation has returned as an adjunct of mass deportation operations, with immigrants separated from family members in the US and deported without the ability to say goodbye.