The Biden administration never ceases to surprise and amaze in its unrelenting drive towards ever greater absurdity when it comes to immigration and border security. A recent and telling example is the Biden administration’s attempt to “compensate” illegal aliens, by paying them $450,000 per person, for “trauma” suffered as a result of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy.
According to The Wall Street Journal, “[t]he Biden administration is in talks to offer immigrant families that were separated during the Trump administration around $450,000 a person in compensation, according to people familiar with the matter, as several agencies work to resolve lawsuits filed on behalf of parents and children who say the government subjected them to lasting psychological trauma.”
The newspaper revealed that the payments being considered “could amount to close to $1 million a family,” and the “total potential payout could be $1 billion or more.”
What this means is that law-abiding American taxpayers, as well as legal immigrants who respected our laws and followed the rules, will be forced to compensate illegal aliens for the consequences of violating our borders and breaking our immigration laws.
While the previous administration’s “zero tolerance” (mislabeled “family separation”) policy was attacked for being cruel and inhumane, we should keep several things in mind. To begin with, it was an attempt to finally get a grip on a border security and illegal migration problem – coupled with an asylum abuse problem – that had been allowed to fester for way too long due to pressure from various lobbies and relative neglect by previous administrations.
Second, the U.S. was not forcing anyone to come to the U.S. illegally or attempt to enter the country by fraudulently invoking the magic word “asylum.” Illegal aliens knew the risks – including the potential to be temporarily separated from the children they brought with them (who, in some cases, were not their children) – and many nevertheless kept coming. Others actually chose to leave their children in the U.S. after themselves being removed.
Third, family separation is an unfortunate, but routine, result of people violating laws. We do not compensate for any trauma that they, or their children, may undergo as a result of their incarceration. Moreover, a law-abiding American citizen or legal immigrant will also not be compensated if they lose a loved one as a result of illegal alien crime. In fact, the Biden administration – which is currently attempting to shower illegal aliens with American taxpayer money – actually dismantled a Trump-era office for victims of illegal alien crime.
The Wall Street Journal appears to take issue with comparisons between the potential payout to illegal aliens with compensation to the families of victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “The 9/11 victim compensation fund,” stated the paper, “averaged awards to the dead of around $2 million, tax-free, at the time an unprecedented payout, the administrator of the fund has said.” Of course, the fact that many illegal alien families will be getting approximately half of that amount is still quite jarring.
Also, keep in mind that a $450,000 per person payment for foreign lawbreakers who have no legal right to even be in the country is still much larger than the $100,000 Military Death Gratuity, which is a one-time (non-taxable) payment to the surviving family of U.S. service members.
The administration’s scandalous attempt to make such generous payments to illegal aliens is a slap in the face of American citizens and legal immigrants. It also reflects Team Biden’s consistent prioritizing and favoring of unauthorized foreign nationals at the expense of everyone else. One thing is for sure: generous rewards for illegal aliens, coupled with constant attempts to ram through amnesty during a historic border crisis, will undoubtedly be viewed as welcome news among potential illegal border crossers in other countries.