Not making us safer

A bipartisan group of former U.S. attorneys—people who’ve done the job of the federal prosecutors now tasked with prosecuting asylum-seeking parents separated from their children—has written a powerful open letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions calling on him to stop automatically prosecuting asylum-seekers for the border crossing that they point out is a Class B misdemeanor.

The former prosecutors make the moral argument that “Traumatizing children by separating them from their parents as a deterrent for adult conduct is, in our view, sufficient reason to halt your policy.” But they also make a coldly pragmatic legal argument from a prosecutor’s standpoint, writing “that the collateral consequences of this ill-advised approach ultimately render us less safe as a nation.” That’s because:

It is a simple matter of fact that the time a Department attorney spends prosecuting misdemeanor illegal entry cases, may be time he or she does not spend investigating more significant crimes like a terrorist plot, a child human trafficking organization, an international drug cartel or a corrupt public official.”

“None of these consequences,” they write, “is required by law,” urging Sessions to end the family separation policy now:

It is time for you to announce that this policy was ill-conceived and that its consequences and cost are too drastic, too inhumane, and flatly inconsistent with the mission and values of the United States Department of Justice. It is time for you to end it. Effective leadership and the integrity of the world’s leading law enforcement agency require nothing less.

Like they said.