Crossing the border without authorization should no longer be a crime, a group of nearly 250 immigrant defense and civil rights wrote in a letter to congressional leaders Wednesday, highlighting growing discontent with a nearly century-old law that President Donald Trump used to carry out his seven-week experiment with systematic family separations at the border.

The letter demands a broad rollback to immigration enforcement measures signed into law by Bill Clinton back in 1996, which critics view as the beginning of a major buildup of the detention and deportation systems .