President Joe Biden’s administration agreed to a settlement on Monday with migrant families who were separated at the US-Mexico border during Donald Trump’s term in office.
“The practice of separating families at the southwest border was shameful,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
“This agreement will facilitate the reunification of separated families and provide them with critical services to aid in their recovery.”
The settlement, which still needs the approval of a US District Court judge, will provide support services for separated families, the Justice Department said.
The services include legal support for immigration claims, housing assistance and some medical coverage. It does not include any monetary damages.
The proposed settlement also sets new standards intended to limit future separations of parents and children, the Justice Department said, and bars the government from separating migrant families for the next eight years.
“By providing services to these families and implementing polices to prevent future separations, today’s agreement addresses the impacts of those separations and helps ensure that nothing like this happens again,” Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said.
Biden issued an executive order in February 2021, shortly after taking office, pledging to “protect family unity and ensure that children entering the United States are not separated from their families.”
An estimated 4,000 families were separated at the southern border in 2017 and 2018 under the Trump administration’s so-called “zero tolerance policy.”
Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the families in their class-action lawsuit, said the settlement “closes the darkest chapter of the Trump administration.”
“To America’s enduring shame, we tore children from the arms of their families to enact a xenophobic agenda,” Romero said.
Lee Gelernt, a lawyer for the ACLU, said the settlement “provides significant benefits to thousands of families, and an indispensable component bars the government from reenacting the zero-tolerance policy in the future.”
