Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan, the top U.S. border enforcement official, said Monday that President Trump's order to stop separating undocumented children and parents at the Mexican border made it necessary to suspend prosecutions of families under the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" immigration policy, for now, The Associated Press reported.
The news came after Attorney General Jeff Sessions defended the controversial policy, and said that some children had been brought to the border by gang members. Sessions also said that drug cartels "take advantage of our generosity and ... use children to smuggle their drugs into our country as well." Protesters outside the school-safety conference in Reno, Nevada, where Sessions was speaking blocked a busy road and expressed outrage over the way the administration has treated immigrant families.