According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, the Biden Administration is considering paying illegal immigrants’ families $450,000 per person for separation at the border.
The Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services have been discussing these payments to settle lawsuits filed on behalf of families that crossed the border in 2018 and got separated.
Most lawsuits are trying for $3.4 million per family, but the Biden administration is considering $450,000 per person, which is approximately $1 million per family.
Dozens of Republican lawmakers are demanding answers and sending a letter to three cabinet secretaries over the matter. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, and Attorney General Merrick Garland are being questioned about the reports.
So far, 45 Republicans from the House have signed the letter, including Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw, Steve Scalise of Louisiana, Elise Stefanik of New York, and North Carolina Rep. Greg Murphy.
The letter outlines the Republicans’ “severe concerns” over reports of paying illegal immigrants close to half a million dollars.
Dan Crenshaw tweeted, “Biden wants to pay illegal immigrants $450,000 for their hardship while breaking our laws”. “For perspective, if a service member is killed in action, their next of kin gets an insurance payment of $400,000,” he added.
“The rationale for this egregious abuse of taxpayer dollars is to compensate these persons for ‘lasting psychological trauma,'” the letter reads. “Do, however, note that these persons crossed into our country in a knowingly illegal manner, fully aware of the consequences of violating our rule of law”.
It also states, “Promising tens of thousands of dollars to those who unlawfully entered the United States would not only reward criminal behavior, but it would surely send a message to the world that our borders are open and our rule of law will not be enforced”.
Republicans warn that if the Biden administration goes through with paying “thousands of illegal immigrants”, it “will unilaterally incentivize migrants from more than 150 nations across the world to surge our border”.
Lawmakers are calling on the secretaries to reconsider this “horrific decision” and “rescind any potential action to this effect”.
