We’re proud to release “The Zero Tolerance Policy,” the first installment in what will be (probably) 3 reports on the current situation at the U.S.-Mexico border.

This one covers the incredible institutional train wreck that Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions caused when they decided in April that every person caught crossing the border improperly should be charged in criminal courts, as a 1952 law dictates. The next one will look at all aspects of family separation. The third will go over what has happened at the border’s ports of entry. A possible fourth one will look at the National Guard deployment at the border, but that’s sort of a different theme and I might put it out separately.

I’m very happy that only 24 days passed between flying home from fieldwork in Arizona and releasing a 4,000-word, 54-footnote document about it. Twenty-four days during which we’ve been working on other stuff, too. Spending February in Colombia evaluating a USAID project ended up teaching me a lot of tips and tricks for turning fieldwork into a report very quickly. Glad I was able to apply them here.