May 29 2018, 5:26 p.m.
FEDERAL MAGISTRATE JUDGE Ronald G. Morgan is
in his 60s, with a bright-pink face and a crisp, friendly manner — though
lately he has been making disconcerting little mistakes in court. He has spent
eight years on the bench in Brownsville, a small Texas city on the U.S.-Mexico
border. Morgan knows how to run a court smoothly, but during a morning session
I attended in early May, he announced that he’d just dealt with 35 defendants —
all at one time — when the actual number was 40. And after the proceedings, he
forgot to pronounce their guilt. Marshals had already led them out, so Morgan
sheepishly had to call the 40 defendants back to the courtroom to correct his
error. These days, he seems distracted and troubled.
That is understandable.
In late April, magistrates’ courts in Brownsville suddenly turned into “zero
tolerance” factories for criminalizing migrants, many of whom have no prior
criminal record. Many are from murderously violent countries in Central America
and have fled to the U.S. seeking asylum, and they often arrive with children
in tow. It used to be rare to charge migrants seeking asylum with crimes. If
they did so, they were put into detention with their children while they
pursued their claims. Or they were released with supervision — along with their
children. The best interests of the children were considered paramount, and
those interests including keeping families together.
But now, in federal
courts like Morgan’s, not only are parents finding themselves charged with the
crime of “illegal entry,” but the government is breaking
up families, sending children to detention centers, often hundreds of miles
from their mothers and fathers, or to distant foster homes.
