This is the Cater Daily Podcast for Wednesday, June 20th, 2018.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The new protocol of prosecution for every case of unlawful border crossing

is, to be clear clear Trump administration policy.

And the separation of parents and children at the border, which is also administration policy,

is needlessly traumatizing kids and parents alike.

That trauma is being compounded by new administration policy, making it harder for

would-be migrants to show that they are escaping oppression.

Alex Narasta immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute

discusses the fallout.

Who are the people that the government is rounding up and separating from their children.

So these are people who have entered the United States unlawfully and in many circumstances have turned themselves into Border Patrol voluntarily to ask for asylum.

They are typically family units of course, at least mothers with children.

They, government has a policy now of prosecuting everybody for legally entering the United States,

which is a misdemeanor.

So as a result, families are separated.

So a child who's brought in is not being charged

with that misdemeanor.

Their parents are, Their parents are then being

held with other criminals and their kids are sent to other Border Patrol

facilities and eventually attempted to be resettled with other family members in the United States

while the parent is tried for that crime. The punishment for that offense is just time served usually and then in theory the kid and the parent are reunited while they are deported

...