PROS AND CONS OF CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES

Attorney General Jeff Sessions implemented a new “zero-tolerance” policy for illegal immigration that involved prosecuting all adults crossing the southwest border illegally, noting a 203% increase in illegal border crossingsfrom 2017 to 2018. [1] The change resulted in about 3,000 children being forcibly separated from their parents because the children couldn’t be held in a federal jail alongside their parents. [2][3] The separated migrant children were detained at government-run facilities, including a new “tent city” built to handle the influx of kids needing housing, while their parents were held in federal jail. [4][5] Previously, families who were contesting deportation or applying for asylum remained in the United States out of detention until their cases were resolved. [6]

The families separated at the border included a mix of legal asylum seekers and illegal border crossers from throughout Central America, many fleeing gang violence in their home nations. [7][8] DHS states that families attempting to enter the country through legal means are not prosecuted, and that asylum seekers at ports of entry were not turned away. [9] Media reports and an ACLU lawsuit disagree, saying that some asylum seekers at ports of entry in Texas and California were separated from their children or denied entry by armed Customs and Border Protection agents. [10][11]

In a June 2018 national survey of 1,000 likely voters, Rasmussen Reports found that 54% of likely voters and 82% of Republicans believed that parents who attempted to enter the United States illegally were more to blame for the separation than the government. [12] A Quinnipiac University poll found that 66% of Americans opposed the policy, compared to 27% who supported it; that support rose to 55% among Republicans. [13]

Following an international outcry and planned nationwide protests, President Donald Trump signed an executive order on June 20 to keep families detained together. [14] One week later, a federal judge ordered the government to reunite children with their parents within a month. [15]

Proponents of the family separation at the US-Mexico border say the policy was intended as a deterrent to people making the long and dangerous journey to cross the US-Mexico border illegally. They also contend that the US government is trying to curb abuse of its asylum process and that people who knowingly violate US laws have to face the consequences.

Opponents of family separation at the border say that the separating children from their parents has a damaging psychological, emotional, and physical impact. They also contend that the policy violates international law and basic human rights, and that separating children from their parents because of immigration status is immoral.

(via Was the United States Justified in Its Policy of Family Separation at the US-Mexico Border? - Top 3 Pros and Cons - ProCon.org)