section_path: Profile and demographics/2018 family separation policy
section_name: 2018 family separation policy
paragraph_text: 2018 family separation policy
  
  In April 2018, then-attorney general of the Trump administration Jeff Sessions announced a family separation policy regarding migrants crossing the US southern border without a visa. Migrants and accompanying family members who had entered the country who were alleged to have entered illegally and were apprehended or turned themselves in to Border Control agents were charged with criminal entry. If these family units had children, they were separated, with adults placed in detention centers to await immigration proceedings and the children in separate facilities or with a relative already in the US. There was widespread condemnation of this policy including that of notable evangelical Christian leaders such as Franklin Graham.