Which officials signed the internal memorandum that led to the Trump administration's zero-tolerance family separation policy, and what do primary documents show?
Executive summary
The immediate, traceable authorship of the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” enforcement posture rests on two signed internal memoranda: Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s April 6, 2018 DOJ memorandum directing federal prosecutors to criminally prosecute all unlawful entries, and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s May 4, 2018 DHS memorandum that implemented referral and operational guidance that resulted in children being separated from adults during criminal prosecutions [1] [2] [3]. Primary documents obtained and later reported by advocacy groups, the DHS Office of Inspector General, and contemporary reporting show those memos formalized what had been urged internally by White House advisers and enforcement officials, even as they expose disputed motives, resisted sign-offs, and gaps in interagency planning [1] [4] [2].
1. Which officials signed the memoranda, and when
The DOJ memorandum that is most frequently cited as the legal linchpin for zero tolerance was signed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions on April 6, 2018; that memo instructed U.S. attorneys to criminally prosecute all cases of unlawful entry and thereby made adult prosecution the default for border crossings [1] [3]. A month later, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen signed a DHS memorandum on May 4, 2018 that required DHS components to refer all improper-entry cases for criminal prosecution and established procedures that led to separating children from parents when the adults were charged [1] [2]. Reports and congressional testimony in 2018 repeatedly pointed to those two signed documents as the formal triggers for the administration’s operational shift [3].
2. What primary documents and official reviews actually show
FOIA-obtained records compiled and analyzed by the American Immigration Council document the April DOJ memo and the May DHS memo as central directives that moved prosecution to the center of border enforcement and instructed DHS components on referrals and custody handling [1]. The DHS Office of Inspector General’s contemporaneous review and management responses cataloged the memos and related operational messages, and highlighted systemic deficiencies—particularly in tracking and coordination—that meant separations occurred without reliable reunification plans [4]. These primary materials show the memos did not emerge in a vacuum: they converted a prosecutorial posture into an enforcement routine without adequate cross-agency contingency planning for children in the custody chain [1] [4].
3. Who pushed the policy inside the administration, and what the records reveal about intent
While the signed memoranda bear Sessions’s and Nielsen’s names, contemporaneous reporting and internal accounts attribute significant pressure and initiative to White House advisers and immigration hard-liners such as Stephen Miller and enforcement veterans like Tom Homan, who had long advocated deterrent measures including prosecution and family separation [5] [6] [7]. The Atlantic’s reporting—based on interviews and documents—portrays Nielsen as reluctant to sign and pressured by other officials, and DOJ and DHS records and reporting indicate the Sessions memo was used to compel DHS agreement [2]. Primary documents and subsequent inspector-general findings also show that agencies such as Health and Human Services were not meaningfully consulted about how to care for or track children prior to implementation, a gap repeatedly flagged in official reviews [4] [8].
4. Alternative framings, official defenses, and limits of the documentary record
Defenders of the policy argued that the memoranda enforced existing law—criminalizing unlawful entry—and were intended as deterrence rather than a deliberate child-separation program; this rationale is reflected in public statements by administration officials and in some congressional testimony [5] [9]. At the same time, primary documents show the administration was aware that criminal prosecutions of accompanying adults would produce separations, and they formalized referral processes without robust reunification mechanisms [1] [4]. Reporting and FOIA material collected by advocacy groups and independent reviewers document the signed memos and the operational chain they set in motion, but the record also leaves open questions about the internal decision-making hierarchy above and around those signatories; available sources do not provide a full, contemporaneous paper trail of every conversation leading to the memoranda [1] [2].