Biden Slammed by Democrats for Dropping $450K Payouts to Border Crossers

Democrats and the open borders lobby are going after President Joe Biden after he dropped plans to provide $450,000 payouts to nearly 1,000 illegal alien families following fierce backlash from the American public.

Last year, Biden’s Departments of Justice (DOJ), Homeland Security (DHS), and Health and Human Services (HHS) were in settlement talks with border crossers represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who claim they have suffered trauma as a result of former President Trump’s Zero Tolerance policy.

Weeks ago, though, ACLU attorneys revealed that the Biden administration was dropping their plans to offer $450,000 payouts to 940 border crossers filing claims that they suffered trauma from the Zero Tolerance policy. The attorneys had asked for an average of $3.4 million for each illegal alien family.

In interviews with the Washington Post, former Obama official Julian Castro called Biden’s dropping the $450,000 payouts for border crossers “just deeply disappointing” and said that “it seems as though the administration is operating out of fear of the politics of this instead of operating based on the values that we share as Democrats.”

“[Biden’s] instinct is a very defensive one,” Castro said. “It tends toward an enforcement-based approach and an approach that sees immigration as a third rail of politics. Generally, the administration is scared of that issue.”

ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said “the government broke” off negotiations between the Biden administration and the border crossers.

“There was no offer on the table,” Gelernt said. “We would be happy to continue talking with the government, but not if it’s just going to be dragging us along for months again and wasting time.”

On Thursday, attorneys with the left-wing Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights went after Biden for not following through on the $450,000 payouts to border crossers.

“Actions speak louder than words, and by sending its lawyers to try to throw separated families out of court, the Biden Administration is effectively defending Trump’s cruel and unlawful family separation policy,” an attorney said in a statement.

As Breitbart News recently reported, the talks had stalled as a result of massive public outcry with polls showing overwhelming opposition to the payouts.

About 63 percent of Americans told CBS News/YouGov pollsters that they are opposed to the payouts, including 64 percent of swing voters, and even 4-in-10 voters who supported Biden against Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

Polls from Rasmussen Reports and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) showed similar results where a majority of Americans, including likely swing voters, oppose the payouts.

Meanwhile, Angel Families — those who have lost loved ones from illegal immigration —  slammed the payouts as “a plan to create millionaires out of over 5,000 illegal alien families” in statements to Breitbart News.

The cost of the payouts to border crossers would have been upwards of $1 billion and more than was given to the American victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks or the Boston Marathon bombing victims.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter here. 

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