Since the Wall Street Journal report Last month, settlements with families could reach $450,000 each, and total acquisitions could be $1 billion or more, Republican lawmakers was in an uproar. On Fox News, former Vice President Mike Pence explode such a plan as “totally unacceptable”, while Republican Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama condemn the idea is “evil and detestable.”
From 2017 to 2018, about 5,600 families has been separated under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy. American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) pay a class action lawsuit on behalf of several families in 2019, alleging constitutional and civil rights violations. Those are the ongoing negotiations.
Whatever the final amount, the victims of family separation deserve compensation. Both policy and historical precedent support the payment of a financial settlement to those affected by horrible practice. It is the right thing to do for migrant families, who will suffer the consequences of separation for the rest of their lives.
Certainly, the victims of family separations have to endure tremendous trauma. American Academy of Pediatrics speak that segregation is “child abuse”, while the Human Rights Doctor Is called it’s “torture.” Children are held in punitive conditions, often thousands of miles from their parents. Some children, alone in government care or in foster homes, are thought to have experienced physics and sex abuse.
The authorities already know these results. Trump even said family separations are intended to serve as a measure to prevent illegal migration. A former deputy director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement told a Senate committee that he warning officials about the devastating consequences of family separations, but nonetheless the Trump administration was ahead of policy.
Providing these families with compensation would be a public recognition that the US government has harmed them. This money will help families access the health and psychological care they and their children will need in the years to come. It should serve as a warning to future administrations that such a policy should never be pursued again.
Government provided compensation for certain groups in the past. In 1988, Congress passed the Civil Liberties Act, which paid $20,000 to Japanese Americans held in camps during World War II. The government also pay off money to members of Alaska’s Aleut community who were forcibly displaced during the same war. Similar actions have occurred at the local level. In 1994, Florida approved over $2 million in settlements for black victims of a racial massacre in 1923, while, in 2016, Chicago pay more than $5 million for victims of police torture.
One difference in these cases is that compensation is made decades after the damage occurred, meaning some victims never lived to receive settlements. For victims of family separation, the government can act now, when compensation can make the biggest difference in the lives of migrant families.
President Joe Biden has sent mixed messages about settlements for migrant families. He called the report about the $450,000 proposal “garbage” and talk, “That won’t happen. “A White House spokesman later Step back his remarks, saying that the President would be “absolutely comfortable” with a settlement with a lower amount. But that’s not Biden’s decision. Settlements are being negotiated by the ACLU and federal agencies. The president should respect their expertise and let the negotiations continue without getting their hands on them.
Conservative media, of course was arrested in this regard, declare that the United States is rewarding”Illegal Immigrants“for coming to this country without permission. However, any compensation for migrants will be due to the US government separating parents and children. These migrants are refugees. and seek asylum, exercise their legal rights to humanitarian relief. And consider that no amount of money can erase the pain and suffering these families have gone through, or give it back. give parents the time they have lost with their children.
If conservatives are offended by such taxpayer dollars, they should be angry with the administration that perpetrated these abuses, not its victims.
As Americans prepare to gather for the holidays, it’s worth reflecting on the value of family, regardless of immigration status. Vulnerable parents and children have been harmed by previous administrations, and the government now has an opportunity to make amends. Migrants deserve economic compensation for the horrors of family separations.
