The stringent enforcement of federal immigration law comes as arrests on the border have climbed in recent months. | David McNews/Getty Images Trump administration to step up family separation at the border

The Trump administration will more frequently separate families at the southwest border under a new policy announced Monday.

The Homeland Security Department will refer “100 percent of illegal southwest border crossings“ to the Justice Department for prosecution under a federal statute that prohibits illegal entry, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Monday.


“If you cross the border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you,” Sessions said at a press conference Monday afternoon near the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego. “It’s that simple.”

The stringent enforcement of federal immigration law comes as arrests on the border have climbed in recent months. Border Patrol caught about 38,000 people at the U.S.-Mexico border in April — more than three times the level during the same month a year earlier, though still well below the level in recent decades.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen signed a memo Friday that directs the department to refer all suspected border-crossers to the Justice Department, according to a DHS official.

The new DHS policy follows an April announcement by Sessions that calls for U.S. attorney’s offices along the southwest border to prosecute cases of suspected illegal entry “to the extent practicable.” Nielsen’s coordinated measure will likely mean a broader pool of people caught at the border will face criminal charges — including parents who arrive with their children.

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Nielsen has not commented publicly about the new approach to border arrests, but Sessions was joined at the event Monday by Thomas Homan, the top official at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and one of the chief evangelists of Trump’s crusade against undocumented immigration.

Homan — who announced last week that he planned to retire from government service in June — reportedly pressed Nielsen to adopt tougher policies toward parents. “Our secretary has our back in this,” Homan said Monday of the administration‘s broader enforcement push.

The top ICE official stressed that DHS had not explicitly changed its family separation policy. “I want to be clear,” Homan said. “DHS does not have a blanket policy on separating families as a deterrent.”

However, the department’s new commitment to prosecute border crossers will almost certainly lead to an increase in family separation.

Under existing law, children encountered at the border can be classified as unaccompanied minors if their parents are prosecuted and detained for criminal charges. In those circumstances, the children are transferred to the custody of the Health and Human Services Department until they can be placed with a guardian. Increased referrals of people suspected of illegally crossing the border would likely make such separations more common.

“We don’t want to separate families, but we don't want families to come to the border illegally,” Sessions said Monday. “This is just the way the world works.”

Homan encouraged asylum seekers to submit claims for refuge at entry points along the border, and not attempt to cross the border without authorization.

“If you have a clear claim to asylum, go to the port of entry where you’re safe,” he said. “This isn’t just about law enforcement, it’s about saving lives.”

The Trump administration has already stepped up criminal referrals of people arrested at the border. From Oct. 1 to April 19, DHS referred nearly 30,000 cases for prosecution under the illegal entry statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1325(a), according to a department official.

President Donald Trump has sought to change asylum laws that allow people who arrive at the border to seek refuge in the United States. Trump and administration officials claim the laws amount to "loopholes" that allow migrants to enter the U.S. and remain without authorization.

Sessions announced earlier this month that he would send 35 prosecutors and 18 judges to the southwest border to combat illegal immigration. The personnel surge will assist legal efforts in Texas, California, Arizona, and New Mexico, according to the DOJ.

The idea of separating families at the border has been on the table since the early days of the Trump administration, a DHS official told POLITICO. But administration officials worried they wouldn’t have the resources to detain thousands more people arriving at the border, as well as house children split from their parents.

The attorney general first announced the DHS policy Monday morning at a law enforcement conference in Scottsdale, Ariz.

“If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you and that child will be separated from you as required by law,” the attorney general said in prepared remarks for that event. “If you don’t like that, then don’t smuggle children over our border.“



CORRECTION: This post has been updated to correct the name of the department into which unaccompanied children are transferred.