Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday slammed a Biden administration plan to pay nearly a million dollars to some illegal immigrant families separated at the southern border during the Trump administration.
“This absurd idea feels like a satirical policy proposal that Republicans would have invented to make a parody out of the radical Left,” McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said Monday. “But this is literally what the Biden administration wants to do, according to reports they have not denied.”
Media outlets reported last week that the Biden administration is considering paying $450,000 per each illegal immigrant child and adult separated by border authorities after crossing illegally into the United States during the first two years of the Trump administration.
The money would be provided to help illegal immigrants deal with the psychological trauma caused by the separation.
The payments could amount to about $1 million for some illegal immigrant families.
McConnell pointed out that families of service members killed in the line of duty receive just $100,000.
“This is an especially extreme example of a big error that Democrats continue to make over and over again,” McConnell said. “The Left mistakenly thinks that a compassionate border means a weak border. Now, apparently, we are a cruel country unless we hand out a million dollars per family of illegal immigrants.”
McConnell said the payments would serve to attract even more illegal immigration, including risky travel by families, especially children, to reach the southern border.
“The government paying out six-figure sums that multiply with every additional child in tow will only enlist the riskiest kinds of immigration,” McConnell said. “We’ll be guaranteeing even more children are dragged along the dangerous journey.”
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The payments would be made to families split up after crossing the border in 2017 and 2018, when Trump’s efforts to stop illegal immigration included separating children from adults so they could be adjudicated separately. Lawsuits followed alleging psychological harm caused to families who were split up.
Republicans have responded with outrage since the story first broke in the Wall Street Journal.
The southern border has been flooded with illegal immigrants, many of them children, since Biden took office, with many crediting the new president with inspiring their effort to come to the U.S.
“Democrats are actively encouraging illegal immigration,” said House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican.
