Obama’s Immigration Agencies Separated Children From Their Families, Too

The Trump administration has an intentional and explicit policy of separating migrant children from their families if caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border without permission. Long before that, however, the administration of Barack Obama ramped up a program with a sometimes similar effect.

Since 2008, the United States has had a policy known as the Alien Transfer Exit Program (ATEP), or Lateral Repatriation. This program focuses on detaining male migrants of Mexican descent.

Here’s how it works: Once an immigrant is caught attempting to cross the border without documentation, they are detained, flown or bused across the United States and then shown the exit at another segment of the U.S.-Mexico border–thousands of miles from their original point of entry.

The Los Angeles Times described a typical use of Lateral Repatriation in a story about Luis Montes. The Times noted:

Montes was put on a plane, flown halfway across the country and bused to the California-Mexico border. At 2 a.m. Tuesday, U.S. border authorities took off his handcuffs and escorted him to a gate leading to the desert city of Mexicali. Montes was back in Mexico, but about 1,200 miles away from where he started.

Luis Montes was sanguine about his dire situation, but the ATEP program often leads to migrants being placed in completely unfamiliar surroundings where they are then subject to crime and...Read More HERE