Thread by @lomikriel

With #DemocraticDebates (esp. @JulianCastro) spotlight on abolishing criminal charges for illegal entry, my story from 2017 on the history of the law and how its use exploded under Bush (also story how I uncovered #familyseparations )
houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t… via @houstonchron

Here is the story that resulted from that one, uncovering the El Paso family separation pilot in 2017, six months before it was announced. Also note difference in @CBP response to separating families between story 1 and 2
houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t… via @houstonchron

And for folks who STILL say it happened under Obama and Bush too, nope. Only in rare circumstances, not as broad policy.
chron.com/news/houston-t…

Basically the government simply doesn't have the resources to prosecute all illegal border-crossers, or even most of them. Even during zero tolerance, only a percentage were prosecuted and the government turned focus from single adults to families to send deterrence message.

There were other challenges too, for ex in McAllen, they often did not prosecute indigenous Guatemalans b/c legal bar of understanding charges would have been too high and lack of interpreters. That didn't stop them from separating, see Sara Caal story: houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…

Anyway, sorry had some tech challenges there tweeting by phone and multitasking, but the point is hopefully if this thread shows up in a coherent way is that the government did not have and absolutely can not prosecute all 1325. The system cannot take it.

Also, abolishing 1325 does not prevent family separations (as seen by recent ACLU filing, and our story from last month houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…) But certainly it would remove that pretext (which always was that, b/c even under zero tolerance only some were prosecuted/separated)