The Trump Administration applied the zero tolerance policy knowing it would separate migrant families at the border

With full knowledge that the zero tolerance immigration policy would lead to the separation of families at the border, then-attorney general Jeff Sessions pushed for it to be implemented, according to a report by the Justice Department Inspector General released Thursday.

More

than 2,800 migrant children were separated

from their parents in the spring of 2018 due to that policy.

In a motion filed Wednesday, attorneys working to reunify separated families said they are still looking for the parents of 611 children.

In addition, they estimated that the parents of 392 children have been deported, making it difficult to find them.

"We conclude that the Department of Justice's stubborn focus on increasing immigration trials came at the expense of careful and adequate consideration of the impact of family unit trials and child separations," the report concludes.

[The number of migrant children separated from their families grows]

Noticias Telemundo reported in October on the draft report, which shows how the Trump Administration demanded that children be separated from their parents, regardless of their age or the objection of prosecutors.

"We need to take the children,

" Sessions said in a May 2018 call, according to notes taken by various prosecutors and included in the report.

"If you care about children, do not bring them; children will not be given amnesty; people with children," he added.

Under instructions from Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, then-Attorney General for the Western District of Texas John Bash informed other prosecutors that the policy mandated not to decline the prosecution of adults "because of the age of a child."

There are 666 migrant children still separated from their families: more than what was known to date

Nov. 10, 202000: 28

The report also highlights

Sessions'

inability

to coordinate policy with the Marshals Service, the Health Department, and federal courts.

This caused some offices to put aside the prosecution of important cases, such as sex crimes.

Due to a lack of resources to deal with the consequences of the policy, immigration courts and prisons were overwhelmed, the report added.

And although the Trump Administration knew of the multiple problems that would arise from the strict immigration policy, they were not addressed until after it was implemented.

"I think the most important thing that comes out of this is the deep premeditation and intent of the family separation effort, despite the damage it was known to cause parents and children," a former Justice Department official told NBC News. .

David Xol-Cholom, originally from Guatemala, hugs his son, Byron, as they reunite after being separated for a year and a half by the "zero tolerance" policy in the United States.

Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who requested the report in July 2018, warned in a statement that he will ask for a

Senate hearing

to hold those who implemented the policy accountable.

"Those who planned and implemented the zero tolerance policy will have to live with the knowledge that their cruelty and cowardice are responsible for the injuries these children will carry for the rest of their lives," said Durbin.

[Reuniting thousands of migrant families will take up to two years, say government lawyers]

In a statement to NBC News, then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein lamented the policy that separated families.

However, the report indicates that Rosenstein and Sessions “expressed their willingness to persecute adults from family units” even though they

knew that this would lead to the separation

of parents and children.

“Since I left the Department, I frequently wonder what I could have done differently, and no issue has occupied my thinking more than zero tolerance immigration policy.

It was a failed policy that never had to have been proposed or implemented.

I wish we had all been better, ”he said.

With information from NBC News, CBS.