The U.S. government pulled out of settlement talks to end lawsuits filed for families who were separated at the U.S.-Mexico border under the Trump administration's zero-tolerance border police, the American Civil Liberties Union said.
In a conference call, Justice Department officials told lawyers for the plaintiffs that the government would not offer a global settlement in family separation cases and will take the lawsuits to court, ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said.
Under the zero-tolerance border policy, approximately 5,500 children were forcibly separated from their parents in 2017 and 2018 to dissuade people from crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, also giving them criminal prosecutions even if the migrants were handing themselves over to authorities to seek asylum, as allowed under the law.
Hundreds of children still await reunions with their parents, as they haven't been located.
Trump stopped the separations in June 2018 during outrage across the nation, including from many Republicans. This was six days before a judge ordered the program's end in response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU.
At the time, it was estimated that the Trump administration could hold up to around 30,000 migrant children by the end of the summer of 2018, according to a Department of Health and Human Services senior administration official, The Washington Examiner reported. The HHS official told the publication that there were already 11,500 children being held by June 18, 2018. There were also reports of children waiting in cages made from metal fencing, according to the Associated Press.
Gelernt said the government's decision had no explanation. "It's hard to understand DOJ's decision other than it was influenced by political considerations," he said.
The decision comes after eight months of negotiations and weeks after reports of a proposed settlement that would include payments of several hundred thousand dollars to each family sparked outrage among Biden administration critics in Congress and elsewhere.
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The settlement talks with the ACLU and attorneys for hundreds of other plaintiffs had proceeded quietly until The Wall Street Journal reported in October that the Justice Department was considering paying about $450,000 to each family affected by the policy. The Associated Press later confirmed the figure had been under consideration.
The suits filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act are intended to help compensate families for the psychological damage of the separation, but critics argue it would reward people for illegally crossing the border.
"Little children were deliberately abused by our government, yet the Biden administration is now going to defend the practice in court," Gelernt said. "That is shameful."
Asked about the amount on November 3, Biden appeared to misunderstand the question and said a payment of about $450,000 per person was "not going to happen." He later said he supported a settlement, without specifying an amount.
In defending against the suits, the Biden Justice Department will also be defending senior Trump administration officials named individually in the ACLU suit, including former senior adviser Stephen Miller and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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