Commentary
What possible rationale can the Biden administration have for paying out up to $450,000 to illegal immigrants? This is not the payment to families, but rather to single individuals. In some cases, the administration could end up forking over as much as $1 million—perhaps even $2 million—to illegal immigrant families who unlawfully attempted to cross the southern border.
Let’s pause to consider how bizarre and inexplicable this action seems to be. Illegals, by definition, are breaking the law. It might seem more appropriate to fine and deport them rather than to enrich them with gargantuan financial payments. I came legally to America and it took me more than a dozen years, and quite a bit of money, to secure legal status. I joked on social media that I should cut up my passport, change my name to Diego D’Souza, and show up at the southern border claiming my $450,000.
The families who lost loved ones at 9/11 got settlements that in some cases didn’t add up to what the illegals might get. Military families are typically compensated with $400,000 upon the death of a service member. Think of what $450,000 per head, and say $1 million per family, would do for poor and middle income households in this country. And let’s remember that President Joe Biden, in using taxpayer money to make these payments, is in effect taking those people’s money and handing it over to lawbreaking Mexicans.
The story about the payments broke in the Wall Street Journal about a week ago. The WSJ reported that the payments were being negotiated by Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) as a settlement of claims on behalf of illegals separated from their families under the Trump administration. The illegals are represented by various left-wing groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the negotiations were ongoing between the DOJ and these legal organizations.
Shortly after the WSJ story, Peter Doocy of Fox News asked Biden about it. Biden described the report as “garbage” and insisted that the payments are “not going to happen.” Yet almost immediately, the ACLU put out a statement saying that “President Biden may not have been fully briefed about the actions of his very own Justice Department.”
This alone was revealing because it confirmed the impression of anyone who watched Biden’s press conference. Biden clearly seemed surprised by Doocy’s question, suggesting he had no knowledge of these payments in process. Since immigration is a controversial issue—indeed, it’s a driving force of Biden’s low approval ratings—one might expect Biden to at least be informed of decisions being carried out in his name.
Sure enough, in a couple of days Biden’s deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre issued a “clarification,” stating that Biden was “perfectly comfortable” with his DOJ settling with the illegals through their attorneys. Biden himself weighed in to back up this backtracking. Now, Biden waxed lyrical about the horrors of people being separated from their families, as if the United States had somehow gravely violated their human rights.
So far I haven’t seen much discussion of why the Biden administration might want to pay these ransoms—because that’s what they are. I can think of three reasons why Biden and his team are doing so. First, they want to repudiate the Trump policy, and this lawsuit stems from 2018 when the Trump administration temporarily separated adults and children in order to more effectively process asylum and other claims.
Let’s note that then, as now, adults often show up at the border with children who are not their own, as a ruse to be able to stay in the United States while their claims are being processed. For Biden, this is a way to feign outrage at Trump’s policies, a continuation of the indignation he expressed on the presidential campaign. The mantra here is that if Trump did it, it must be awful.
Second, the lavish settlements are a way to funnel money to left-wing legal organizations that are supportive of Biden’s ideology and his administration. Normally, we think of settlement negotiations as conducted between rival parties, say a business on the one hand, and unions on the other. But these negotiations more closely resemble two mafia families, in league with each other, that are negotiating how to get money from one to the other—money taken from a third party that’s not directly involved in the negotiations.
Third, the Biden administration’s irresponsible actions can be seen as a way of inviting more migrants to come to the southern border. Already we have migrants showing up not just from Mexico, not just from Central and South America, but also from Central Europe, Haiti, Iran, India, and all over the world. Basically it’s a free-for-all, and some of the caravans making their way toward Texas feature Biden signs. Essentially the migrants are saying they’re responding to Biden’s open invitation. And think of the galvanizing effect on the poor people who learn that some of their earlier counterparts are now going to get more money than they have ever seen in their lives, money that would enable them to retire in many parts of the world.
Yes, it’s scandalous. Yes, it’s unconscionable. Yes, it’s theft from the American taxpayer. But none of that makes the conduct of Biden or his DOJ purely irrational. Rather, Biden is doing what makes sense, not for the United States, not even in terms of justice, but only in terms of what benefits his administration, his political party, and his left-wing allies.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
