NOT SO FAST, JOE: GOP Introduces Bill to Block $450K Payments to Immigrants Separated at Border

Back in October, The Wall Street Journal reported the U.S. was in talks to pay millions of dollars in settlements to immigrant families that were separated at the border; settlement figures as high as $450,000 per family were discussed. Now, GOP Senators are taking action to stop the payments.

Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC), Tom Cotton (R-AK), John Cornyn (R-TX), and Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will introduce the Protect American Taxpayer Dollars from Illegal Immigration Act.

“Our southern border is a disaster, and President Biden’s failed policies have continued to fuel this ongoing crisis,” Tillis said in a statement. “We are seeing the most illegal immigration this year alone than ever recorded, and now President Biden wants to give illegal immigrants a payout, further rewarding lawlessness and chaos.” 

“These $450,000 settlements are an insult to all hard working Americans who will subsequently be funding these large settlements with their hard-earned tax dollars,” he said. “I am proud to work with my colleagues to make sure this doesn’t happen.”

President Biden initially called reports of the settlements “garbage” but quickly changed his tune once he realized that members of his administration has already put the deal in motion.

“If, in fact, because of the outrageous behavior of the last administration, you coming across the border, whether it was legal or illegal and you lost your child, you lost your child, he’s gone, you deserve some kind of compensation, no matter what the circumstance,” Biden said.

“While American families are struggling anxiously just to keep pace with President Biden’s inflation, the President now wants to make millionaires out of people who crossed the border illegally. It’s beyond parody,” Mitch McConnell said in a statement this week. “Obviously, this would only exacerbate the Democrats’ border crisis and incentivize the riskiest and most dangerous kinds of illegal immigration.”