The US President Joe Biden said on Saturday that the families of children detached from their parents at the US-Mexico border during the Trump presidency should be compensated, adding that his Justice Department is in settlement negotiations with the family members.
Biden said that the people who had their children taken away from them as a result of the Trump administration’s family separation policy, which was intended to discourage families from crossing into the US illegally, should be compensated regardless of the circumstances.
Biden established a task force shortly after taking office to try to reunite countless children and parents separated by the policy, which was in place for several months in 2018 and ignited a regional and global uproar.
A person familiar with the talks said that the government was considering payments of around $450,000 to each person affected, but that figure has since changed. As the discussions are private, the person spoke on the condition of anonymity.
According to court filings in a federal case in San Diego, about 5,500 children were separated from their parents under President Donald Trump’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy, in which parents were separated from their children to face criminal prosecution for crossing the border illegally. Due to insufficient tracking systems, many people were separated for an extended period of time. The payments are meant to make up for the psychological damage.
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