Chaos In The Courthouse As Border Arrests Surge
It was just before 3 p.m. on a recent Tuesday and Magistrate Judge Barbara L. Major of the Southern District of California had been waiting all afternoon to arraign 37 people arrested for illegally entering the country. The arrests followed the Trump administration’s enactment of a new “zero-tolerance” policy, under which anyone caught crossing the border illegally—even first-time offenders—would be federally prosecuted for a misdemeanor and face a possible six months in prison. But the defendants never appeared in the San Diego courthouse that day.