Zero Tolerance and Family Separation
The implementation of zero tolerance activated a massive response from activists, attorneys, social workers, psychologists, policy makers, human rights and immigrant justice organizations, and the general public. We recommend the following short films and media coverage about how the policy unfolded and the impact on parents and children.
After Zero Tolerance is a Frontline short documentary that tells the story of a Honduran mother separated from her child and their subsequent reunification.
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The Unreachables from VICE News follows the lawyers and human rights workers in Central America who were tasked with finding parents who were separated and deported.
ABC Nightline details the impact of family separation on personal and national levels.
Timelines and Resources
Justice in Motion’s interactive timeline spotlights the mobilization of their Defender Network, a group of lawyers and other professionals in Central America and Mexico who responded to the family separation crisis as it unfolded in 2017. The defenders were the first to flag family separation as a human rights violation when they began to encounter parents in Guatemala deported without their children. Since then, the organization has been at the forefront of searching for deported parents, and assisting families with the reunification process.
Southern Poverty Law Center’s timeline uses media coverage to document the pilot program which began to separate families in 2017, long before Zero Tolerance was implemented by the Trump Administration. The timeline includes links to news coverage of the impact of separation on families, and the response of immigration justice and human rights organizations like the Women’s Refugee Commission, Texas Civil Rights Project, the ACLU and many more.
Voice of America News’ timeline includes multiple forms of media including photographs, tweets, and other government documents including a transcript of a hearing on the family separation policy on July 2019 by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform during which witnesses described the trauma caused by the policy.
American Oversight’s extensive timeline includes a compilation of the Trump Administration’s communications about family separation, public statements about the policy, public reporting, internal agency investigations, and internal discussions uncovered through the Freedom of Information Act.
In October 2022, Caitlin Dickerson published “We Need to Take Away Children: The Secret History of Family Separation,” an in-depth investigative report for The Atlantic about Zero Tolerance policy and the conditions which moved the policy forward to implementation. By the end of the year, the magazine provided access to The Family Separation Files, a collection of documents and other source material that informed the writing of the article.
KIND (Kids in Need of Defense) has been at the forefront of addressing the profound crisis caused by Zero Tolerance. The organization helps children and families address the long-term consequences of the policy and has put together several resources including a timeline about the ongoing work to help families reunite with each other.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of a mother and daughter who were forcibly separated from each other. The lawsuit cites violations of the Constitution’s due process clause, federal law protecting asylum seekers, and of the government’s own directive to keep families intact. The Ms. L v. ICE, a class action lawsuit on behalf of separated families continues. Visit the ACLU’s informational page about the lawsuit for more information.