ACLU Rips Into Biden for Denying Border Crossers Will Be Paid $450,000 Each

The left-wing American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is going after President Joe Biden after he claimed this week that a plan to give reparations-style $450,000 payouts to border crossers is “not going to happen.”

Last month, reports circulated that Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) were working to settle with a number of border crossers represented by the ACLU, who claim they have suffered trauma as a result of former President Trump’s “Zero Tolerance” policy that was briefly imposed in 2019.

As part of the settlement, attorneys with the DOJ, DHS, and HHS are considering a plan that would give each border crosser about $450,000 and family units about $1 million. The total cost of the payouts would reach $1 billion.

This week, when asked about the payouts, Biden said, “that’s not going to happen,” though the West Wing of the White House has little-to-no say over DOJ settlements.

In response, ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said, “Biden may not have been fully briefed about the actions of his very own Justice Department” as they negotiate the settlement.

“If [Biden] follows through on what he said, the president is abandoning a core campaign promise to do justice for the thousands of separated families,” Romero said:

We respectfully remind President Biden that he called these actions ‘criminal’ in a debate with then-President Trump, and campaigned on remedying and rectifying the lawlessness of the Trump administration. We call on President Biden to right the wrongs of this national tragedy. [Emphasis added]

As Breitbart News has noted, the $450,000 payouts to border crossers would far exceed the compensation provided to the victims of the September 11, 2001, Islamic terrorist attacks and of the Boston Marathon bombings.

In addition, analysis by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) calculated that the single payout for a border crosser under the proposal could feed 42 American families for an entire year.

Meanwhile, the total cost of the payouts could provide homes to nearly 80,000 homeless Americans for a year or could forgive student loan debt for more than 27,000 American college students and graduates who are struggling to move up the economic ladder.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.