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Joined: May 2001
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Campfire Ranger
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OP
Campfire Ranger
Joined: May 2001
Posts: 18,354 Likes: 2 |
In-Fing-credable. https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-...families-separated-at-border-11635447591
WASHINGTON—The Biden administration is in talks to offer immigrant families that were separated during the Trump administration around $450,000 a person in compensation, according to people familiar with the matter, as several agencies work to resolve lawsuits filed on behalf of parents and children who say the government subjected them to lasting psychological trauma.
The U.S. Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services are considering payments that could amount to close to $1 million a family, though the final numbers could shift, the people familiar with the matter said. Most of the families that crossed the border illegally from Mexico to seek asylum in the U.S. included one parent and one child, the people said. Many families would likely get smaller payouts, depending on their circumstances, the people said.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents families in one of the lawsuits, has identified about 5,500 children separated at the border over the course of the Trump administration, citing figures provided to it by the government. The number of families eligible under the potential settlement is expected to be smaller, the people said, as government officials aren’t sure how many will come forward. Around 940 claims have so far been filed by the families, the people said.
The total potential payout could be $1 billion or more.
As part of a so-called zero-tolerance enforcement policy, immigration agents separated thousands of children, ranging from infants to teenagers, from their parents at the southern border in 2018 after they had crossed illegally from Mexico to seek asylum in the U.S. In some cases families were forcefully broken up with no provisions to track and later reunite them, government investigations found. The lawsuits allege some of the children suffered from a range of ailments, including heat exhaustion and malnutrition, and were kept in freezing cold rooms and provided little medical attention.
Many of the lawsuits describe lasting mental-health problems for the children from the trauma of the months without their parents in harsh conditions, including anxiety, a fear of strangers and nightmares. The lawsuits seek a range of payouts, with the average demand being roughly $3.4 million per family, some of the people said.
In recent months, lawyers for the families and the government have told courts overseeing the cases that they are engaged in settlement negotiations and hoped to reach a deal by the end of November.
“President Biden has agreed that the family separation policy is a historic moral stain on our nation that must be fully remedied,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s immigrant-rights project and a lead negotiator on one of the lawsuits. “That remedy must include not only meaningful monetary compensation, but a pathway to remain in the country.”
People taken into custody for alleged illegal entry sat in cages at a facility in McAllen, Texas, in June 2018. Photo: U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Rio Grande Valley Sector via AP
In his first weeks in office, Mr. Biden pledged to reunite the separated families, describing those actions undertaken by the Trump administration a “moral and national shame.”
A DHS spokeswoman referred questions to the Justice Department, where a spokeswoman declined to comment. The Department of Health and Human Services didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The discussions have been at times contentious. They have taken place over the past few months among a group of dozens of private lawyers representing the families and government lawyers. Some government lawyers have viewed the payouts as excessive for people who had violated the law by crossing the border, the people said. One government lawyer threatened to remove his name from the case out of disagreement with the potential settlement offer, the people said.
In another instance, a Department of Homeland Security attorney involved in the settlement talks complained on a conference call that the payouts could amount to more than some families of 9/11 victims received, one person said. Other people said senior departmental officials were in alignment on the amount and disputed the 9/11 comparison, given that the U.S. government hadn’t been responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The 9/11 victim compensation fund averaged awards to the dead of around $2 million, tax-free, at the time an unprecedented payout, the administrator of the fund has said.
“Damage class actions in this kind of case are pretty rare, it’s hard to think of a recent comparison,” said Margo Schlanger, who ran the civil-rights office during the Obama administration at the Department of Homeland Security and now teaches at the University of Michigan law school. Ms. Schlanger said class-action compensation claims are more common in cases involving defective medical devices or other consumer products.
“It is a complicated, complex piece of litigation” to try to resolve hundreds of different lawsuits at the same time, and “sometimes even more complex to try the cases,” Ms. Schlanger said, adding that it made sense to try to resolve them together.
The Trump administration in May 2018 implemented a zero-tolerance approach, in which agents apprehended everyone crossing the border illegally, including those seeking asylum. That practice meant that children accompanying those adults were separated from their parents and put on a separate administrative track. The overall goal, the Trump administration said at the time, was to slow the number of people crossing the border illegally, but several of those officials have since apologized for the consequences of that policy.
Immigration law gives children greater legal protections than adults, so while the adults’ asylum cases could be dismissed quickly, allowing them to be deported, children mostly remained in the U.S. in child-welfare shelters or living with relatives. The Trump administration also hadn’t built a system to track which children belong to which parents before beginning to separate them.
A January report from the Justice Department’s inspector general faulted senior Trump Justice Department officials for knowing the policy change would result in families being separated, but pressing ahead without preparing for it.
President Trump ended the policy through an executive order on June 20, 2018, following bipartisan blowback and global condemnation.
Many of the families filed tort claims, a type of civil claim seeking damages for loss or harm, asking for compensation to cover mental-health treatment to address the emotional and psychological toll the practice took. Some of the cases were resolved under the Trump administration. In a 2019 settlement in New Jersey, for example, an adult and a minor received a total of $125,000.
Most such cases remained pending at the start of the Biden administration. When Mr. Biden became president, he formed a task force to reunite the families that remained separated.
Settlement talks are also ongoing in a separate lawsuit, known as Ms. L V. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in which the ACLU has asked the government to provide families with mental-health and other services, along with a permanent legal status.
Apart from talks over damages, the administration has already begun a process of locating deported parents and reuniting them with their children in the U.S. The administration has reunited 52 families and is in the process of reuniting about 200 more. The families are being given a three-year grant of parole, a form of temporary humanitarian protection that allows them to live and work legally in the U.S. but doesn’t offer them a path to permanent legal status.
Last edited by Steve; 10/28/21.
Carpe' Scrotum
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Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 19,293 Likes: 7
Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 19,293 Likes: 7 |
Let's see, they crossed over illegally and were then separated by law while in a holding facility and now Joe wants to give them all $450,000. You can't just make this stuff up.
kwg
For liberals and anarchists, power and control is opium, selling envy is the fastest and easiest way to get it. TRR. American conservative. Never trust a white liberal. Malcom X Current NRA member.
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Posts: 23,678 Likes: 4
Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
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Posts: 23,678 Likes: 4 |
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Joined: May 2016
Posts: 61,013 Likes: 72
Campfire Kahuna
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Campfire Kahuna
Joined: May 2016
Posts: 61,013 Likes: 72 |
I am MAGA.
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Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 24,813 Likes: 32
Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 24,813 Likes: 32 |
wish it were a cool million myself
PRESIDENT TRUMP 2024/2028 !!!!!!!!!!
Posted by Bristoe The people wringing their hands over Trump's rhetoric don't know what time it is in America.
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Joined: May 2004
Posts: 56,274 Likes: 37
Campfire Kahuna
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Campfire Kahuna
Joined: May 2004
Posts: 56,274 Likes: 37 |
I am..........disturbed.
Concerning the difference between man and the jackass: some observers hold that there isn't any. But this wrongs the jackass. -Twain
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Joined: May 2016
Posts: 61,013 Likes: 72
Campfire Kahuna
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Campfire Kahuna
Joined: May 2016
Posts: 61,013 Likes: 72 |
It was a dreary morning in April of 2017 when I was separated from my Mexican Family.
I never thought I would see Chico, Harpo, Groucho or Gummo ever again.
I am MAGA.
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Joined: May 2001
Posts: 18,354 Likes: 2
Campfire Ranger
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OP
Campfire Ranger
Joined: May 2001
Posts: 18,354 Likes: 2 |
It was a dreary morning in April of 2017 when I was separated from my Mexican Family.
I never thought I would see Chico, Harpo, Groucho or Gummo ever again. Okay. That made me snort.
Carpe' Scrotum
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Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 19,509
Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 19,509 |
This kind of shidt makes me wonder why I even try anymore.
4 out of 5 Great Lakes prefer Michigan.
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Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 86,380 Likes: 38
Campfire Oracle
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Campfire Oracle
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 86,380 Likes: 38 |
If you take the time it takes, it takes less time. --Pat Parelli
American by birth; Alaskan by choice. --ironbender
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Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 10,765 Likes: 1
Campfire Outfitter
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Campfire Outfitter
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 10,765 Likes: 1 |
There's no way anyone would try cheat the system,,,,,Right? Sad
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Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 32,250 Likes: 9
Campfire 'Bwana
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Campfire 'Bwana
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 32,250 Likes: 9 |
It was a dreary morning in April of 2017 when I was separated from my Mexican Family.
I never thought I would see Chico, Harpo, Groucho or Gummo ever again. I think it only works for the southern border, Jim.
The only true cost of having a dog is its death.
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Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 2,853 Likes: 3
Campfire Regular
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Campfire Regular
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 2,853 Likes: 3 |
This is exactly what the voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Georgia want. Otherwise they would be doing anything other than what they are doing now. Right? Apathy from the couch.
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Posts: 78,307 Likes: 2
Campfire Oracle
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Campfire Oracle
Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 78,307 Likes: 2 |
Im gonna be down on the Rio Grande next week, think I'll take a dip and re-emerge looking for my family!
"...the left considers you vermin, and they'll kill you given the chance..." Bristoe
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Campfire Regular
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Campfire Regular
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Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 132,087 Likes: 66
Campfire Sage
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Campfire Sage
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 132,087 Likes: 66 |
So, is he offering that to all other kinds of criminals, too, who have been arrested and forced to face the just consequences of their crimes?
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Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 10,091 Likes: 15
Campfire Outfitter
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Campfire Outfitter
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 10,091 Likes: 15 |
Are they going to pay everyone who gets separated from their family as a result of themselves breaking the law?
How much do the Jan. 6th trespassers get? They've been locked in solitary and kept from everyone.
Bb
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Joined: Aug 2004
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Campfire Kahuna
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Campfire Kahuna
Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 69,816 Likes: 47 |
Molɔ̀ːn Labé Skýla!
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Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 29,710 Likes: 6
Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 29,710 Likes: 6 |
This kind of shidt makes me wonder why I even try anymore. I think that’s the point of everything the Biden Admin has enacted. They’re gonna melt us down, sift the dross of American patriotism, and build back better the Brave New World Order.
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Campfire Tracker
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Campfire Tracker
Joined: Jan 2014
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No you are wrong, it’s “Lets go Brandon”
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