According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Departments of Justice, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services are considering paying around $450,000 a person to the parents of illegal immigrants who were detained and were temporarily separated from their children during detainment. The total payout could cost the government more than $1 billion. The payments are considered a potential settlement to resolve lawsuits that claim that the federal government subjected parents and children to lasting psychological trauma as a result of the separations.
Children who entered the US with adults were separated from them and placed into the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services. The separations occurred with no process for reuniting the families, as some parents were deported. President Trump later ended the policy in an executive order on June 20, 2018.
Previously, on January 20, 2021, President Joe Biden issued an executive order reinstating Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which provides amnesty to children who were brought into the USA illegally by their parents. However, as reported by CNBC, on July 16, 2021 federal judge Andrew Hanen ruled that the program was “created in violation of the law” and “illegally implemented.” He barred the government from accepting new applications to the program, effectively cancelling Biden’s executive order. The judge did not order current DACA recipients to have their status pulled.
