Zero Tolerance?

‘Zero Tolerance’ Overwhelmed Courts and Diverted Resources From Criminal Investigations

Attorney General Sessions’ orders to prioritize prosecuting people for immigration-related offenses in 2017 and 2018 put a significant strain on law enforcement across the border, diverting resources away from drug and organized crime prosecutions. The increase in immigration prosecutions, which played a primary role in the family separation crisis, also led to overcrowded jails, backed up court dockets, and overwhelmed prosecutors and federal public defenders.

These findings come from a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The report also concludes that increased immigration prosecutions cost the government tens of millions of dollars across multiple government agencies. Agents were forced to work overtime for days on end, military prosecutors were detailed to the border, and federal judges were reassigned to the border from courts around the country.

The report mirrors findings from Syracuse University’s TRAC center, which found last year that during the height of Zero Tolerance, non-immigration prosecutions at the border dropped by 35%.

Federal prosecutors explained that “the more time prosecutors spend on reactive work—such as misdemeanor or felony immigration-related cases—the less time [they] have to work on other issue areas, including proactive cases that may take months or years of work to build.”

Increased caseload also had ripple effects on other criminal defendants.