President Biden has offered an angry rebuke to the media over-reporting on his administration’s alleged plans to pay hefty monetary compensation to migrants separated at the border under Trump, saying his issue was with the dollar amount, not the reporting itself.
“Let’s get it straight, you said everybody coming across the border gets $450,000. The number is what I was referring to,” Biden said, speaking at a press conference in Washington on Saturday discussing the passing of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.
“Now here’s the thing. If in fact because of the outrageous behaviour of the last administration, you, coming across the border, whether it was legal or illegal, and you lost your child, you lost your child, it’s gone! You deserve some kind of compensation no matter what the circumstances,” an agitated Biden added, booming in anger and pointing his index finger at the cameras.
“What that will be I have no idea, I have no idea,” Biden added, referring to the potential size of the settlements. The president ignored a follow-up question on whether the Justice Department would negotiate the size of the compensation, as previously indicated by the White House.
On Thursday, a White House spokesperson told reporters that cash payouts to migrant families separated at the border under Trump would “save taxpayer dollars” and put “the disastrous history of the previous administration’s use of 'zero tolerance’ and family separation behind us.” Biden, according to the spokesperson, would be “perfectly comfortable” with the DoJ settling with families and individuals litigating with the federal government.
A day earlier, Biden told Fox News that the reporting on $450,000 per person in compensation to illegal immigrants separated at the border was “garbage” that wasn’t going to happen. “If you guys keep sending that garbage out, yeah, but it’s not true,” Biden said when asked whether the report could result in even more migrants attempting to make the perilous journey to the United States via the southern frontier.
“$450,000 per person, is that what you’re saying? That’s not gonna happen,” Biden insisted.
Also Thursday, a group of 137 House Republican lawmakers put together the ‘Illegal Immigration Payoff Prohibition Act,' a bill seeking to prevent the government from paying compensation to separated migrant families. Democrats enjoy a slim 221-213 majority in the 434 seat House, and the GOP would require a significant number of their fellow Republican lawmakers, plus over a dozen Democrats, to move the bill forward.
Republicans have called the supposed $450,000 figure a slap in the face to ordinary Americans and service members, pointing to the median US household income of $68,703, and noting that the maximum life insurance payout for the military is ‘just’ $400,000.
Last week, former President Donald Trump accused Biden of turning the US into a “dumping ground,” and suggested that the $450,000 payment idea was “not even believable.” Trump also insisted that his administration’s tough policies, including the threat to separate families, was “one of the reasons” migrants didn’t come in such large numbers during his tenure, and why he, Trump, “was so successful at the border.”
The ‘$450,000 payout’ story was first reported by the Wall Street Journal in late October, suggesting that the DoJ, the Department of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services were considering the proposal to settle lawsuits filed on behalf of parents and children separated at the border. The paper indicated that over $1 billion would be paid out for the roughly 5,500 children separated after crossing the border under the plan.
Biden revoked nearly a dozen Trump directives on immigration immediately after stepping into office in January, including “harsh and extreme immigration enforcement,” and in February created an inter-agency task force aimed at reuniting separated migrant families.
Last month, US Customs and Border Patrol reported that agents had stopped over 192,000 migrants from coming over in September, with the total number of encounters for fiscal year 2021 topping 1.7 million people – surpassing the previous record of 1.64 million encounters set in the year 2000.
Republicans, ordinary Americans, and the leaders of Mexico and Guatemala have blamed the administration for the crisis at the border, pointing to its revocation of hardline immigration policies – including the signature Trump border wall and the Remain in Mexico programme, as well as promises to “restore and expand” the US asylum system, and potentially provide a “path to citizenship” to the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants already living in the US.