Prosecutors in Southern California cautioned that addressing increased immigration cases due to the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy to prosecute all illegal immigrants could detract resources from drug smuggling cases, a new report says.
Attorney Fred Sheppard, a Justice Department supervisor in San Diego, submitted an email to border authorities in May, notifying them that immigration cases “will occupy substantially more of our resources,” USA Today reports.
He told Homeland Security officials prosecutors would not have as much support to manage “reactive matters.” Cases related to smuggling drugs fall into that category. He then detailed some changes to “streamline” smuggling cases so they could be completed faster.
The Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy has doubled the number of immigration cases in states like California and Texas. For example, in June more than 4.100 migrants were charged after they entered the U.S., per USA Today.
But according to Kelly Thornton, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Justice Department “has given our district the necessary resources — including 10 additional prosecutor positions plus at least five Department of Defense attorneys — to prosecute all of these crimes.”
The report comes after the Trump administration faced backlash for the zero tolerance policy, which separated thousands of minors from their accompanying adults.
[Related: Trump administration could be holding 30,000 border kids by August, officials say]
Trump signed an executive order Wednesday to prevent apprehended immigrant families from being split up due to the administration’s zero tolerance policy, but the Department of Homeland Security said that families that have already been split will not be reunited until the adults’ legal cases have finished.
