The conflicted and confused battle over separating children from parents was one prong of the scheme, and the one most obvious to attract outrage and heartbreak. Who wouldn’t feel the pain of a little girl crying as she watched her mother’s arrest? Who wouldn’t cringe at the sound of a child calling “papi, papi” from behind chain link?

But the other prong, less evocative, was the “zero tolerance” policy by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, which both involves law and requires a certain amount of background to appreciate.

In the past, people caught illegally crossing the Rio Grande were deported. Now, they are being charged with a misdemeanor under 8 U.S.C.A. § 1325. It is not a crime to be physically present in the United States without authorization, but it is a crime to engage in the conduct of eluding examination by immigration. Once a person has been deported, a second (or more) illegal re-entry is a felony. Go to prison, then get deported.

But if charged with a crime, even a misdemeanor, then instead of civil deportation, they go to real court, and in real court, they get real rights, including the right to counsel.

White school buses transported the immigrants to the courthouse from a nearby detention facility and back after the hearing. They appeared to be wearing clothes they had on when they were detained two or three days before, though without belts or shoelaces. Many of them—though not all—were shackled with leg chains or handcuffs, or both. Azalea Aleman-Bendiks, the assistant public defender representing all 85 in Monday afternoon’s hearing, told Hacker that 20 of them—just shy of one-quarter—had entered the country with children whose ages ranged from 20 months to 17 years.

It has to be a pretty big courtroom to hold 85 defendants in the well. Even ceremonial courtrooms would feel the crush. But what of the federal defender who’s expected to “represent” this mass of humanity?

The rationale, to the extent that word ever applies to any “zero tolerance” policy, is that it sends a message to people who would cross illegally. because deporting them alone wasn’t a strong enough message. It’s a misguided grasp of the way “messages” are received, but then, why would Sessions be expected to concern himself with such matters.

More likely, the message was to the hardcore anti-immigrant base that they were “doing something” and had little to do with immigrants at all.

But if they’re going to prosecute people for a crime, then they’re going to have to do it for real. Can a federal defender interview, no less investigate and represent, 85 people at once? The simplistic retort is that they all crossed illegally, they’re all in the same position, they have no defense, so there’s nothing to represent. No need to interview. No need to investigate. No need to ponder all those rights our Constitution confers upon the accused, as they’re all getting on a bus anyway after the gavel drops.

But it’s rarely as easy-peasy as it seems it should be to the crowd. When you’re prosecuting defendants in criminal proceedings, they get the same rights as every other defendant. Among those rights is the right to individualized counsel. The right to discovery. The right to investigate, to examine and cross-examine witnesses against them. The full and undivided attention of a federal judge. The full panoply of rights.

Walking 85 people in shackles into a courtroom at one time, with one federal defender to cover the bunch, fails on every conceivable level to satisfy the way in which criminal prosecutions in the United States must be handled.

But you don’t care, because they’re illegals, so they don’t “deserve” the rights that Americans get? Sorry, but it doesn’t work that way. If we prosecute them, they get our rights. All of our rights. And if we turn away and pretend we can’t see what is happening when a judge faces 85 defendants with one federal defender to represent them all, the “convenience” of mass prosecutions will worm its way to others whom we don’t believe to be worthy of constitutional rights, to individualized prosecution.

It’s all or none, and this shouldn’t be acceptable no matter how worthy you view immigrants. And if I was the judge charged with dealing with this mass of humanity, it would not be acceptable in my courtroom.