White House considering payments of $450K — per person — to immigrant families separated at border

The Biden administration is discussing paying out hundreds of millions of dollars to illegal immigrant families who were separated at the US-Mexico border under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy in 2018, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

According to the Journal, the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services are considering the payments in order to settle lawsuits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and others on behalf of families who crossed into the US from Mexico illegally to seek asylum.

The paper reports that the average demand in each lawsuit adds up to approximately $3.4 million per family, while the settlement offer being mooted by the Biden administration amounts to around $450,000 per person and close to $1 million per family.

The Journal reported that the ACLU has identified approximately 5,500 children affected by the policy, which advocates say caused physical and mental trauma in children who were taken from their parents. So far, around 940 claims have been filed by immigrant families.

Depending on how much is doled out to settle each claim, the cost to taxpayers could approach $1 billion.