Approximately $450,000 might be given to each person separated from their family at the southern border, according to reports.
The Biden administration is considering these financial aid measures to families separated at the border as a potential settlement for several lawsuits that claim the U.S. government’s policies left them with lasting psychological effects.
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Wall Street Journal reports that the U.S. Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services are considering payments that could amount to close to $1 million a family.
However, the final numbers could shift, according to people familiar with the matter.
Most of the families that crossed the border illegally from Mexico to seek asylum in the U.S. included one parent and one child, the people said. Many families would likely get smaller payouts, depending on their circumstances.
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During Biden’s first weeks in office, he vowed to reunite the families that had been separated by the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy.
Beginning in 2017, the Trump administration tried to prosecute all immigrants who illegally crossed the border, resulting in children who arrived with their parents being sent to shelters and border facilities.
The policy pushed for family separations at the border in a bid to deter illegal crossings, including from those seeking asylum, was a hallmark of its immigration policy and officially ran between April and June 2018.
It saw thousands of children, including infants, held by the Department of Health and Human Services while their parents were prosecuted and held in jail, but was scrapped via executive order after bipartisan outrage at the administration failing to reunite families.
But according to Family Reunification Task Force leader Michelle Brané, around 1,000 families have yet to be reunited.
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“The Biden administration is correct to provide relief to the children and families affected by the government’s horrific practice of family separation,” ACLU lead attorney Lee Gelernt said in a statement to Forbes.
“Their suffering is something they will always live with, and it is a deep moral stain on our country.” Gelernt continued.
We need to make it right, and this includes not simply any monetary support, but also a path to remain here. This is what is right and fair.”
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