April 6, 2018

Although families have been separated at the border since mid-October of 2017, it wasn't until April 6, 2018 that General Jeff Sessions announced the Zero Tolerance Policy directing "federal prosecutors to criminally prosecute all adult migrants entering the country illegally." Because children cannot be held in a detention facility with their parents, the number of children separated from parents skyrocketed to an estimated 2,000 children from April 19 to May 31. In June of 2018, a federal judge, Dana Sabraw, issues an injunction against the separations, and ordered the government to put the thousands of affected families back together. However, government data released in March of 2019 shows at least 245 family separations since the policy was halted in June 2018.