From The Washington Post
By Salvador Rizzo
The president and top administration officials say U.S. laws or court rulings are forcing them to separate families that are caught trying to cross the southern border.
These claims are false. Immigrant families are being separated primarily because the Trump administration in April began to prosecute as many border-crossing offenses as possible. This “zero-tolerance policy” applies to all adults, regardless of whether they cross alone or with their children.
The Justice Department can’t prosecute children along with their parents, so the natural result of the zero-tolerance policy has been a sharp rise in family separations. Nearly 2,000 immigrant children were separated from parents during six weeks in April and May, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
The Trump administration implemented this policy by choice and could end it by choice. No law or court ruling mandates family separations.