Joe Biden’s Department of Justice is reportedly negotiating a legal settlement that could give illegal immigrants $450,000 per person — $900,000 for a parent and child — if their family was separated during the height of Donald Trump’s 2018 crackdown on illegal border-crossings. This is a scandalous giveaway that would reward lawbreakers and enrich activist lawyers.
There’s nothing wrong with settling these cases, but the size of the payoffs is wildly excessive. $900,000 is more than twice the $400,000 payment made to the families of American servicemen killed in war. It is more than what some families of 9/11 victims received. This, for people who knowingly broke the law.
With nearly a thousand claimants already lined up and more sure to surface for a payday this size, the tab could exceed $1 billion.
Why so much of our money? In a lawsuit, if you think you were in the wrong, you should be willing to settle. But a settlement is a compromise. Both sides look at their chances of losing at trial, and they look at what the size of a verdict might be. A good settlement discounts the likely verdict by the odds of losing and the money each side saves by not going to trial.
Biden’s lawyers are acting as if these cases are such slam-dunk losers that they should just offer a blank check with no real discount for settling.
Why? Trump’s “zero tolerance” policies were widely criticized because they were unduly harsh in applying the laws on the books, and even many Republicans thought that separating families went too far. That is why Trump backed off the policy after a monthlong controversy.
But even many critics recognized that the laws on the books allowed Trump to charge illegal border-crossers with crimes. People jailed for crimes are inevitably separated from their children as a result. A 1997 federal court settlement further restricted the government’s legal options in ways that made it harder for children to be held together with their parents. Not only can the government argue that it acted legally, the parents themselves created the situation by breaking the law.
The lawyers who brought the suits, including the ACLU, know full well that there would be challenges proving their case and more challenges proving that their clients suffered nearly a million dollars’ worth of emotional distress resulting from family separations. They are also demanding “a pathway to remain in the country,” and they ought to be willing to compromise on their demands for money if they get that, too.
Why the rush to give them whatever they ask for? Because the White House doesn’t want to be criticized by progressives for rightfully fighting for taxpayers while the ACLU litigates in the press. Shame on Joe Biden.
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October 30, 2021 at 09:32AM
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White House’s unsettling rush to settle: Feds not fated to lose cases - New York Post
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