Biden Administration Considers Paying Hundreds of Millions to Separated Migrant Families
The total potential payout could be $1 billion or more for parents and children who say the government subjected them to both physical and lasting psychological trauma.
Landwebs
As the Joe Biden administration considers offering immigrant families that were separated during the Donald Trump administration around $450,000 a person in compensation, 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 to help resolve lawsuits filed on behalf of parents and children who say the government subjected them to lasting psychological trauma, reports the Wall Street Journal.
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 lawsuits allege some of the children separated from their families 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, but many families would likely get smaller payouts, depending on their circumstances. The total potential payout could be $1 billion or more. Around 940 claims have so far been filed by the families.
