WASHINGTON — The Biden administration walked away from negotiations to financially compensate families separated at the border by the Trump administration, three lawyers for the families told NBC News on Thursday.
“There’s no explanation for not settling these cases other than the Biden administration is unwilling to use literally any political capital to help the young children deliberately abused by our government,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director for the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.
Gelernt said that the Biden administration “will now be in court not just defending the United States but also the individual federal officials responsible for family separation.” These families had been separated at the border by the Trump administration.
NBC News previously reported that the administration had been in talks to offer separated migrant parents and children hundreds of thousands per person.
The lawyers for these migrants represented them in a number of cases that have claimed the families experienced harm when they were forcibly separated.
In a statement, the Department of Justice said, “While the parties have been unable to reach a global settlement agreement at this time, we remain committed to engaging with the plaintiffs and to bringing justice to the victims of this abhorrent policy.”
More than 5,600 children were separated from their parents as part of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy and a pilot program which preceded it. Physicians for Human Rights said the separations met the United Nations’ definition of “torture,” and the American Academy of Pediatrics said they amounted to “government-sanctioned child abuse.” President Joe Biden, as a candidate, called the policy “criminal” in the final 2020 presidential debate.
The Biden administration formally ended the “zero tolerance” program earlier this year but, as of late October, more than 1,000 families were estimated to still be separated from each other, the White House said at the time. In many cases, the parents were deported back to their home countries while their children remained in the U.S. And, according to court records, more than 200 parents of separated children have still not been located.
Two people with knowledge of the negotiations say the talks broke down after details of a proposed agreement, which had been submitted to lawyers in writing by the Biden administration, were leaked to the Wall Street Journal in late October.
Asked about the report at the time, which said separated individuals could receive $450,000 each, Biden pushed back.
“It’s not true,” Biden said. “That’s not going to happen.”
Within days, the Justice Department rescinded its offer, the sources with knowledge of the negotiations said.
Biden later walked back his comments at a press conference, signaling support for a settlement.
“If in fact, because of the outrageous behavior of the last administration, you were coming across the border, whether it was legal or illegal, and you lost your child — you lost your child, it’s gone — you deserve some kind of compensation, no matter what the circumstance,” he said. “What that will be I have no idea. I have no idea.”
Diana Reiter of Arnold & Porter, one of the lawyers leading the negotiations, said that in the absence of a settlement, her clients would attempt to bring their cases to trial, potentially forcing the Biden administration to defend Trump administration officials responsible for the separations.
“We are profoundly disappointed that this administration has walked away from its campaign promise to provide some measure of justice to these families and instead intends to defend the horrific family separation policy in court,” she said. “We look forward to proceeding with our litigation and have confidence in the judicial process.”
The leak of the settlement agreement put families in danger, lawyers say, by making them a target for crimes including kidnapping.
“It’s actually harmed them more,” a source with knowledge of the negotiations said.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
