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  • 2018-06-18 (xsd:date)
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  • Was the 'Law to Separate Families' Passed in 1997 or 'by Democrats'? (en)
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  • In mid-June 2018, a number of readers asked about a law to separate families, primarily whether the purported legislation was passed by President Barack Obama, President Bill Clinton, or the Democrats: Although the questions were varied, their underlying question essentially was the same: Whether a so-called law to separate parents from children existed before the Trump administration. In some versions, President Bill Clinton's administration passed such a law, and in other iterations, President Barack Obama detained twice as many children separated from their parents during his presidency. On 5 June 2018, Trump attributed the policy to Democrats in general: There is no federal law that stipulates that children and parents be separated at the border, no matter how families entered the United States. An increase in child detainees separated from parents stemmed directly from a change in enforcement policy repeatedly announced by Sessions in April and May 2018, under which adults (with or without children) are criminally prosecuted for attempting to enter the United States: We addressed the law to separate children in a fact check about a purported statement made by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Sessions did not make the statement attributed to him, but he did make a series of remarks in early April 2018 about a new border initiative involving the separation of children from parents at border crossings: On 7 May 2018, CNN reported that until April 2018, immigration officials used discretion to handle families or unaccompanied minors entering the United States without documentation: That same article surmised that families could be separated, indicating that in the first week of May 2018, the separation of children from families had not yet begun: The rumors correctly suggested that family detention as a whole came before the Trump administration, but as of August 2015 intact families at the border were rarely separated. Other iterations of the rumor held that the Obama administration separated more children from their parents than the Trump administration, a claim stemming from an inaccurate retelling of the fact that an influx of unaccompanied minors from Latin America crossed the border in from 2014 onward. In those instances, minor children primarily traveled without their parents. Claims that the law to separate families was passed in 1997, those claims originated with a February 2018 Department of Homeland Security statement referencing [l]egal loopholes [that] are exploited by minors, family units, and human smugglers. The DHS statement claimed existing immigration policies create a pull factor that invites more illegal immigration and encourages parents to pay and entrust their children to criminal organizations. However, neither the 1997 Flores settlement nor a 2008 human trafficking law cited in that release in any way stipulated that the government separate children from their parents: A cluster of rumors about the controversial separation of families at the border held that the policy came before the Trump administration, either stemming from a 1997 law or purported policies of previous administrations. Those claims were false. No federal law required or suggested the family separation policy announced by Attorney General Sessions in several sets of remarks during April and May 2018. (en)
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