Operation Streamline
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Operation Streamline is a joint initiative of the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice in the United States, started in 2005, that adopts a "zero-tolerance" approach to unauthorized border-crossing by criminally prosecuting those perpetrating it. Up to 70 people are tried at the same time, sometimes wearing shackles in the courtroom. Entering without inspection is a misdemeanor, and re-entering after deportation is a felony.[1][2][3][4]
After launching Streamline at one sector of the Texas/Mexico border sector in 2005, the number of criminal prosecutions for illegal border crossing and/or re-entry quadrupled from around 4,000 annually in the early 2000s to 16,000 in 2005.[5] The program expanded to several other sectors during the first term of the Obama administration and total prosecutions for first time offenders tripled to 44,000 in 2010 and by 2013, that number doubled to a peak of 97,000.[6]