In “the Trump era,” as Attorney General Jeff Sessions called it on Tuesday, immigration officials will undertake a harsh crackdown on undocumented migrants—a campaign one veteran federal prosecutor described as “fucking horrifying.”
In his speech at a border port of entry in Nogales, Arizona, “[t]he nation’s top law enforcement official outlined a series of changes that he said mark the start of a new push to rid American cities and the border of what he described as ‘filth’ brought on by drug cartels and criminal organizations,” the Associated Press reported.
“This is a new era,” the immigration hardliner told Customs and Border Protection personnel. “This is the Trump era. The lawlessness, the abdication of the duty to enforce our immigration laws, and the catch-and-release practices of old are over.”
Mother Jones reported:
(Politico notes that the term “filth,” which appeared in prepared remarks, was omitted from Sessions’ speech when he gave it.)
One anonymous federal prosecutor told Daily Beast reporter Betsy Woodruff the directives were generating widespread negative response: “It’s fucking horrifying. It’s totally horrifying and we’re all terrified about it, and we don’t know what to do.”
“The things they want us to do are so horrifying—they want to do harboring cases of three or more people,” the prosecutor continued. “So if you’re illegal and you bring your family over, then you’re harboring your kid and your wife, and you can go to jail.”
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT