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This week President Joe Biden’s administration pulled out of settlement talks for immigrants who illegally entered the U.S. and were separated from their families. The administration had been considering 1 million per family.

The Biden administration claims that nearly a thousand lawsuits have so far been filed by the ACLU of migrant families separated at the border. 

Democrats are lambasting Trump for the lawsuits. It has not been reported how many are from the Obama administration which had the same basic policies. Biden was Vice-President under President Obama.  

“Amid political outcry from Republican lawmakers, after the settlement talks were reported, the government told outside negotiators the number would need to be lowered,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “This week, the lawyers say, the Justice Department pulled out of negotiations entirely.”

Reports of the proposed payouts were made public in October. The Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services all believed massive payouts were a good option for settling lawsuits brought by the ACLU. 

DOJ out of 1 million per family negotiations

The ACLU is demanding about $3.4 million per family.  The total payout could be more than $1 billion. And the reported settlement offers were set at about $450,000 per person or $1 million per family. 

Initially, Biden appeared to be unaware of the negotiations. When asked about the $1 million payouts per family he flatly stated, “That’s not gonna happen.” 

“You guys keep sending that garbage out,” the president added. “But it’s not true.”

Shortly thereafter, the ACLU released a statement claiming that the president was out of the loop. And he “may not have been fully briefed about the actions of his very own Justice Department.”

President Biden backtracks from October to December

Republicans are claiming that the lawsuits are ridiculous since the migrants were here illegally. They also insist that many children were sent without a parent. And that the policies in the Obama administration were the same.

In November, Biden appeared to have been updated by the DOJ and defended the possible payouts. He also criticized the Trump administration for “outrageous behavior.” 

When Biden pulled out of the 1 million per family negotiations he said, “Whether [the border crossing] was legal or illegal, you lost your child. You lost your child, it’s gone — you deserve some kind of compensation, no matter what the circumstance. 

“What that will be,” he added, “I have no idea.” 

The ACLU’s Anthony D. Romero called on President Biden to “right the wrongs of this national tragedy.”

Justice Department spokeswoman Dena Iverson said that the Biden administration still remained “committed to engaging with the plaintiffs and to bringing justice to the victims.”

Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said, “We are hardly naive that politics sometimes plays a role in DOJ decisions but it is shameful that it happened when the lives of little children are at stake.”

Gelernt added, “It would be an understatement to say we are disappointed” in the Biden administration.