Talk:Operation Streamline

Family separation[edit]

during his administration exceptions were generally made for families.

Do you have a specific quote from your source? https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/16/us/politics/family-separation-trump.html isn't freely viewable by everyone so I was unable to do a full source of the article. Presently this Wikipedia article doesn't mention family exceptions to enforcement, so if NYT has done that I'd like to add it here based on what you provided.

I'm also interested in seeing if we can find earlier sources describing such exceptions, such as from 2008 or earlier when they were presumably being implemented. ScratchMarshall (talk) 19:25, 19 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"In 2005, he launched Operation Streamline, a program along a stretch of the border in Texas that referred all unlawful entrants for criminal prosecution, imprisoning them and expediting assembly-line-style trials geared toward quickly deporting them. The initiative yielded results and was soon expanded to more border sectors. Back then, however, exceptions were generally made for adults who were traveling with minor children, as well as juveniles and people who were ill.

Mr. Obama’s administration employed the program at the height of the migration crisis as well, although it generally did not treat first-time border crossers as priorities for prosecution, and it detained families together in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody — administrative, rather than criminal, detention.

Discussions began almost immediately after Mr. Trump took office about vastly expanding Operation Streamline, with almost none of those limitations. Even after Mr. Kelly stopped talking publicly about family separation, the Department of Homeland Security quietly tested the approach last summer in certain areas in Texas."

I think the default approach was to not go after families as harshly, not sure how much it was commented on at the time. The new policy by Bush was to ratchet it up from where it was before, but his administration didn't reach the level that it's at today.--Pharos (talk) 19:31, 19 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for providing that. I wouldn't necessarily summarize "adults who were traveling with minor children" as families though. That could include non-families as well. This makes me wonder if we can find any sources which cover the steps the government took to verify familial claims during that time. 20:02, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't think it was an official policy with rigid guidelines, so much as common sense. They would have probably been most inclined to give a pass to a people who were apparently parent/child, somewhat less so to siblings or cousins, least so to unrelated groups.--Pharos (talk) 20:13, 19 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Effectiveness[edit]

Robert Reich quotes an NBC statement that a Vera Institute of Justice study found that "prosecution and incarceration do not deter migration." If this is an approved source, it should be added. Kdammers (talk) 00:55, 16 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]