DEL RIO, Texas (AP) — The Trump administration is promising to take a hard line on illegal immigration and step up prosecutions of immigration crime, including crossing the border illegally.

Along a stretch of Mexican border at the edge of West Texas such an approach has been in place for more than a decade and nearly every immigrant caught crossing the border illegally faces the same fate: a criminal charge.

On a recent morning in Del Rio, Texas, 15 Mexican men were just the latest to experience first-hand the tough approach as each pleaded guilty to a federal misdemeanor for trying to sneak into the United States.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is calling for that scene to be repeated in other courthouses along the border and in the interior of the country.

 

More From 97.5 KGKL