Biden backs down to pay up to $ 450,000 to migrant families separated by Trump

A family from Haiti walks after crossing the border from Yuma, Arizona.JOHN MOORE (AFP)

The Administration of President Joe Biden has ended negotiations to compensate hundreds of families separated by the harsh immigration policies of Donald Trump. The Department of Justice had for weeks the possibility of compensating each of the victims of one of the Republican's most controversial measures with up to $ 450,000. This option has disappeared this Thursday, according to a legal representative of the affected migrants. Instead, the Government will litigate the cases individually in the courts and it will be the judges who will determine the amounts of compensation for the damage for the victims, if any.

The decision has been a new setback for the Biden Administration in its promise to turn around immigration policy.

A month ago, the president himself recognized that the families separated at the border deserved compensation.

“If you lost one of your children crossing the border due to the outrageous behavior of the previous Administration, legally or illegally, you deserve compensation.

No matter the circumstance, "said the president in early November.

The reunification of families separated at the border was one of his great promises in the campaign.

More information

Waiting for the big turnaround promised by Biden in immigration policy

The president's words came in response to a series of publications in

The newspaper revealed in October that the Justice Department was negotiating a settlement in nearly a thousand cases of people detained in 2018. The newspaper then claimed that authorities were considering paying more than $ 400,000 per family. This caused a stir in the Senate, where eleven Republican politicians demanded that the Executive undo the compromise. Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader, called it "ridiculous." A White House source confirmed that the remuneration would be lower, but negotiations continued.

This Thursday, the change of the winds has been confirmed. Lee Gelernt, a lawyer for the American Association for Civil Liberties (ACLU), who had been part of the negotiation, has confirmed that the Administration has risen from the table to take each of the cases separately to the courts. "History will not judge the Biden Administration kindly for its decision not to advocate for all these young children," Gelert told the WSJ. The activist suggested that politics in Washington have been the element that ended up breaking the negotiations.

Analysts believe that the agreement could become an obstacle for Democrats in the campaign towards the midterm elections in 2022, where part of Congress is renewed. The Biden administration, which has an approval rating of just over 40%, is struggling to change the narrative in a migration crisis that erupted weeks after his arrival at the White House in January. The Border Patrol made more than 1.6 million arrests along the line with Mexico between October 2020 and October 2021. Arrests in November were more than 173,000, an increase of 5% from the previous month. This represents a new milestone in a year where the migratory flow has broken all records.

With the pressure on an election that seems unfavorable, the Biden government has opted for continuity in some immigration policies implemented by Trump. The Administration revived at the beginning of this month, by mandate of a federal court, the controversial Migrant Protection Protocols, known colloquially as Stay in Mexico. This program forces asylum seekers to wait for a resolution to their cases outside of the United States.

The Executive has promised to respond to the requests in 180 days or less and has extended it to keep other immigrants out of the United States, but contemplates some exceptions. These include disabled or mentally challenged immigrants, older adults, and those who have been discriminated against in their countries of origin because of their sexual identity. This has yet to materialize. Washington has claimed that the pandemic delayed legal processes and that there are now at least 1.3 million immigration cases to resolve.

The Government also maintains intact the regulations known as Title 42, an emergency measure that Trump instituted in March 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, and that allows those who arrive without papers on US lands to be quickly deported.

This has been a useful tool that Biden has used to vent the border with Mexico, a hot zone that has brought him many problems in domestic politics.

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