At a press conference on Wednesday, President Joe Biden was asked whether payments to families who were separated at the U.S.-Mexico border during Donald Trump‘s presidency would incentivize more people to cross the border illegally.
“If you guys keep sending that garbage out, yeah… but it’s not true.” he said. “$450,000 per person? Is that what you’re saying?” Biden asked. “That’s not going to happen.”
This comes after The Wall Street Journal reported last week that families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border under Trump’s immigration policy could be entitled to large sums of money as settlement negotiations between the families’ lawyers and the DOJ begin. Though around 5,500 children were separated from their families at the border, not all of the families will be eligible. So far, around 940 claims have been filed.
ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero responded to Biden’s comments by saying, “But if he follows through on what he said, the president is abandoning a core campaign promise to do justice for the thousands of separated families… We respectfully remind President Biden that he called these actions ‘criminal’ in a debate with then-President Trump, and campaigned on remedying and rectifying the lawlessness of the Trump administration. We call on President Biden to right the wrongs of this national tragedy.”
