Families that were split up have no deal
WASHINGTON — Migrants whose children were taken from them under former President Donald Trump’s zero-tolerance border policy have not reached a settlement agreement with the U.S. government, a lawyer for the families said Thursday as he and other advocates pushed back at increasing criticism of a proposal to pay compensation to them.
Attorney Lee Gelernt of the American Civil Liberties Union would not discuss details of the talks nor confirm a previously reported settlement proposal of several hundred thousand dollars to each affected person.
He did, however, hold out the possibility of a trial, featuring parents separated from children as young as six months as witnesses, if there’s no agreement to end the litigation.
“All I can say is there’s no deal on the table and we have no timeframe necessarily,” Gelernt said in a conference call with reporters.
Republicans grilled Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about it this week when he appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“As you can imagine, many Americans think it’s a pretty outrageous idea to offer massive taxpayer-funded payments to illegal immigrants who broke our laws, particularly in the middle of a record-shattering border crisis that this administration has created,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, said at the hearing Tuesday.
Mayorkas referred questions from the senators to the Department of Justice, which is handling the negotiations, though at one point he disputed the suggestion that a settlement would encourage future migrants to seek to come to the U.S.
About 5,500 children were forcibly removed from their parents under Trump’s zero-tolerance policy in which parents were separated from their children as the administration sought to discourage people from crossing the border.
Trump halted the practice in June 2018, just six days before a judge ordered an end to the program in response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU.
In addition to negotiating a potential settlement, the Biden administration has also been working to reunite some of the families. There are believed to be hundreds of parents who were separated from their children and haven’t been located.
In addition to the payment, settlement talks have also included discussion of granting the families legal U.S. residency and providing counseling services.