House Republicans have penned a letter to three secretaries from President Biden’s office to express their “severe concerns“ regarding possible compensation to migrant families separated at the border, US media reported on Friday.
Among the 45 GOP representatives who signed the letter are Greg Murphy, Steve Scalise, Elise Stefanik, and Dan Crenshaw.
According to the letter, obtained by Fox News, addressed to Secretary of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and Attorney General Merrick Garland, attention should be paid to the fact that the migrants crossed the US border illegally.
Lawmakers stress that the promise of huge allowances would “not only reward criminal behavior, but it would surely send a message to the world that our borders are open and our rule of law will not be enforced.“
Apart from that, the initiative was also said to “unilaterally incentivize migrants from more than 150 nations across the world to surge our border.”
The lawmakers reportedly noted that the border crisis was triggered by the Biden administration’s policies that have been stimulating immigration “since its first day in office” by reversing the restrictive measures implemented by the previous administration.
The Republican members of Congress suggested comparing the supposed payments with the 2019 average median American household annual income of $68,703” or “the maximum payout from an SGLI life insurance policy for military members, which is $400,000.”
"At a time when the American household is dealing with historic rates of inflation and the price of average consumer goods – groceries, gasoline, and heating – have risen exponentially, it’s shocking that our government is considering rewarding illegal activity for purely political reasons," the lawmakers pointed out.
They also wondered, why the payments are supposed to be given to “families separated in 2018 under the previous administration and not those separated between 2008-2016 or since 2021.”
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the administration is mulling compensation for illegal migrants, $ 450,000 each, after many of them had filed appeals to the government for allegedly causing them psychological trauma by separating them from their family members at the border.
The amount of the payouts may be changed and differ from family to family, with the total figure reportedly standing at a maximum of $1 billion. Some of the payments may exceed those that were allocated to families of the 9/11 terror attack victims, reports say.
The administration has reportedly already received around 940 claims from families separated by law enforcement at the southern border. Attorneys of families involved in legal proceedings with the government are reportedly negotiating possible settlements that are expected to be concluded by the end of November.