SAY WHAT

Biden administration pulls out of talks to compensate families separated at border
By Jake Thomas


Young and old activists join demonstrators across the country as they converged on the offices of congressional leaders to demand that detention camps holding immigrant children and their families be closed and voicing outrage over reports of inhumane conditions in Los Angeles in 2019. On Thursday, lawyers and civil rights groups said the Biden administration pulled out of talks to compensate separated families. File photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo

Dec. 16 (UPI) -- The Biden administration has abandoned negotiations to provide cash payments to thousands of migrant families as compensation for a Trump-era policy that separated parents from their children at the Mexican border.

Lawyers and civil rights groups expressed outrage, pointing to how President Joe biden and top officials had earlier condemned the policy as cruel and promised to make amends.



"This is outrageous behavior by the Biden administration, and every decent American should be shocked," Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Projects, said in a video posted to Twitter.

He said that children as young as six months were taken from their families upon arriving at the U.S.'s southern border with Mexico. Parents didn't know the location of their children, who suffered irreparable trauma, he Gelernt. While the Trump administration devised the policy, "it's now on the Biden administration," he said.

Gelernt told NBC News that the Biden administration should expect legal action that will seek to hold "individual federal officials responsible for family separation."

"While the parties have been unable to reach a global settlement agreement at this time, we remain committed to engaging with the plaintiffs and to bringing justice to the victims of this abhorrent policy," the U.S. Justice Department said in a statement.



Biden called the policy "criminal" during the first presidential debate with Trump last year. Human rights groups similarly condemned the hard-line policy meant to deter asylum seekers that separated more than 5,000 children The American Academy of Pediatrics called the policy "government-sanctioned child abuse," and a study found separated children continued to suffer from psychological trauma even after being reunited.


After taking office earlier this year, Biden formed a task force seeking to reunite families. Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in March the administration was "working around the clock to replace the cruelty of the past administration with an orderly, humane and safe immigration process."

Lawyers representing the families told The New York Times that negotiations stalled after a leak in October suggested payments could be as high as $450,000. Conservatives and Republicans responded with withering criticism to the high payments, with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell saying Biden wanted to "literally make millionaires out of people who have violated federal law." Biden dismissed reports of the high payments.

Lawyers for the families told the paper they would seek compensation in court after being surprised by the Biden administration's sudden reversal.