周四发布的一份联邦监察报告显示，前司法部长杰夫·赛辛斯及其办公室是特朗普政府将移民家庭分开的“驱动力”，这是针对未经授权的跨境者的“零容忍”政策的一部分。
司法部监察长办公室发现，根据它所描述的“埃尔帕索倡议”，有280个家庭被分开该“倡议”于2017年3月至11月进行，是后来在西南部整个边境实施的“零容忍”努力的一次尝试。
报告称，尽管检察官和法官对此表示担忧，但塞申斯办公室还是推动了这项举措。
美国公民自由联盟(American Civil Liberties Union)代表离散家庭对政府提起诉讼的首席律师李·杰尔纳特(Lee Gelernt)称这种做法“不道德、非法”。
“这份新报告显示了特朗普政府愿意在多大程度上摧毁这些家庭，”杰尔纳特说。“就在你认为特朗普政府不能再降得更低的时候，它确实做到了。”
白宫没有回应美国广播公司新闻部对该报告发表评论的请求。
“这份报告证实了我们已经知道的，特朗普政府打算在边境分离家庭，”众议院国土安全委员会主席本尼·汤普森(D-Miss。)在一份声明中说。“他们知道后果，还是照做了。”
根据政府问责局2019年的一份报告，西南边境的起诉从2017年到2018年有所增加。塞申斯在2018年4月进一步公开宣布了全面起诉政策。
大约两个月后，当唐纳德·特朗普总统停止这种做法时，3000多名儿童与家人分离。根据2020年10月发布的法庭文件，近550名儿童仍然与家人分离。
根据报告中描述的2018年5月的电话会议，塞申斯向美国边境的律师保证，家庭可以“立即”团聚。
监察长的报告指出，这种期望缺乏可行性，这反映出塞申斯在推动非法入境起诉的同时，对这种做法缺乏了解。
该报告描述了2018年5月美国律师给塞申斯办公室的一份备忘录，其中解释说，非法入境的平均刑期长达两周。鉴于将未成年人转移到难民安置办公室需要72小时，这意味着在判刑后不能“立即”团聚。
“在这样的时间表内完成起诉，在大多数情况下，在实践和法律上是不可能的，即使被告寻求认罪并立即被判刑，”报告说。
塞申斯拒绝就该报告接受采访。美国广播公司新闻无法联系到塞申斯置评。
“零容忍”时期的副总检察长罗德·罗森斯坦(Rod Rosenstein)对该报告的回应是对该政策感到遗憾。“我希望我们都做得更好，”他在周四的一份声明中说。
罗森斯坦说:“我在副总检察长的职位上呆了两年，因为我想帮助保护选举的完整性，捍卫法治，并维护司法部的独立性。”“离开部门后，我经常问自己，我们应该做些什么不同的事情，没有什么比零容忍移民政策更能主导我的思维了。”
塞申斯时任参谋长的马修·惠特克(Matthew Whitaker)表示，国土安全部的参与有助于执行这项政策，并推翻了他的办公室负有主要责任的说法。
“这是一个错误的说法，因为(国土安全部)必须提交案件，他们可以直截了当地说，‘我们没有提交有孩子的人。’这不是我们能决定的，”惠特克告诉OIG。
Sessions' DOJ 'driving force' behind 'zero-tolerance' family separation policy: Watchdog report
Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his office were the "driving force" behind the Trump administration's efforts separating migrant families as part of the "zero tolerance" policy aimed at unauthorized border crossers, according to a federal watchdog report released Thursday.
The Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General found that 280 families were separated under what it describes as the "El Paso initiative." Conducted from March through November of 2017, the "initiative" served as something of a trial run for the "zero tolerance" push later implemented across the entire border in the Southwest.
Sessions' office pushed forward for the initiative despite concerns raised by prosecutors and judges, according to the report.
Lee Gelernt, the lead attorney in the American Civil Liberties Union's lawsuit against the government on behalf of separated families, called the practice, “immoral and illegal.”
“This new report shows just how far the Trump administration was willing to go to destroy these families," Gelernt said. “Just when you think the Trump administration can’t sink any lower, it does.”
The White House did not respond to ABC News' request for comment on the report.
“This report confirms what we already knew, that the Trump Administration intended to separate families at the border," House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said in a statement. "They knew the consequences and did it anyway."
Prosecutions along the southwest border increased from 2017 to 2018, according to a 2019 report from the Government Accountability Office. Sessions took the further step of publicly announcing the total prosecution policy in April 2018.
By the time President Donald Trump pulled back the practice about two months later, more than 3,000 children were separated from their families. Nearly 550 children remain separated from their families, according to court documents released in October 2020.
Sessions assured U.S. attorneys on the border that families could be "immediately" reunited, according to a May 2018 conference call described in the report.
The lack of feasibility of such an expectation, as outlined by the inspector general's report, reflects Sessions' lack of understanding of illegal entry prosecutions at the same time he pushed for the practice.
The report describes a memo from U.S. attorneys to Sessions' office in May 2018, which explained that average sentences for illegal entries were as long as two weeks. Given the 72-hour requirements for transferring minors to the Office of Refugee resettlement, it meant reunification could not “immediately” follow sentencing.
“Completing a prosecution within such a timeline was, in most cases, a practical and legal impossibility, even if a defendant sought to plead guilty and be sentenced immediately,” the report said.
Sessions declined to be interviewed for the report. ABC News was unable to reach Sessions for comment.
Rod Rosenstein, deputy attorney general at the time of “zero tolerance,” responded to the report with regret over the policy. “I wish we all had done better," he said in a statement Thursday.
"I stayed in the job of Deputy Attorney General for two years because I wanted to help protect the integrity of elections, defend the rule of law, and preserve the Department’s independence," Rosenstein said. "Since leaving the Department, I have often asked myself what we should have done differently, and no issue has dominated my thinking more than the zero-tolerance immigration policy."
Matthew Whitaker, Sessions' then-chief of staff, said the involvement of the Department of Homeland Security was instrumental in carrying out the policy and pushed back on the characterization that his office was principally responsible.
"That is a false narrative because [Homeland Security] had to refer the cases, they could have categorically said, 'We are not referring people with children.' And that was not under our discretion," Whitaker told the OIG.
