(LA Times) The Department of Homeland Security has opened an investigation into the federal government’s use of a little-known law to disproportionately prosecute and imprison migrants from Muslim-majority countries.
A Times investigation published late last month revealed the disproportionate nature of the prosecutions in Del Rio, Texas. The Department of Justice’s manual for U.S. attorneys says that a “person’s race, religion, sex, national origin or political association, activities or beliefs” should not affect a prosecutor’s decision “to commence or recommend prosecution or take other action against a person.”
For an 18-month period beginning in late 2021, federal prosecutors in Del Rio charged more than 200 migrants under U.S. 19 1459, a rarely used law that demands that people crossing into the United States do so at a checkpoint and report to a customs office.
