DHS offers rent payments, medical care, chance at asylum to separated migrant families

The Biden administration has reached a settlement with migrant parents whose children were separated from them under President Trump’s zero-tolerance border policy, promising them housing, medical care, trauma therapy, work permits and legal assistance to help them win a permanent place in the U.S.

The deal, announced Monday, does not include cash payments.

But it does include new rules that would limit future administrations’ ability to bring misdemeanor charges against migrant parents, as long as have their children in tow as they cross illegally. 

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the deal is an attempt to condemn the actions of the Trump administration and to make things right for thousands of parents who were arrested at the border and had their children taken and put into the foster care system.

“This agreement helps family members reunify with their loved ones in the United States and receive services to help them address the trauma they have suffered,” Mr. Mayorkas said.

The American Civil Liberties Union, the chief negotiator for the families in the settlement, said the deal “helps close one of the darkest chapters of the Trump administration.”

“This settlement alone can’t repair the harm done to these children but it is an essential beginning,” the ACLU said on social media.

The separations grew out of Mr. Trump’s zero-tolerance policy, which was implemented in full in 2018, as caravans of families moved toward the U.S.

Those families marked a major change in immigration patterns, with the parents realizing that bringing a child with them was effectively a free pass.

Thanks to court-ordered restrictions, the government could not detain families for deportation, so it had to release them. Once free, the families quickly disappeared into the shadows with little chance of being ousted later.

Trump officials decided to start charging parents with illegal entry, a misdemeanor, as a get-tough measure. But since there is no family detention in the criminal justice system, the children were taken, deemed “unaccompanied,” and transferred to the Health and Human Services Department for placement in shelters and, later, with sponsors.

The major problem is that the Trump administration did not have a way to reunify the parents with the children, so parents who went through the court system — usually pleading guilty within a day or two and getting a sentence of time served — were deported without being reunited with their children.

At one point, roughly half of the parents in some sectors of the border were being charged, and thousands of children were separated.

The blowback was severe, and after several weeks the policy was ended by presidential decree and court intervention.

But reuniting the families has proved tricky, with some parents proving impossible to track down back in their home countries and other parents saying they were happy to have their children, who entered illegally, have an opportunity for a better life.

The new settlement applies to families who say they faced a forced separation from Jan. 20, 2017, to Jan. 20, 2021 — which covers the entire Trump administration. Those involved said it would cover “thousands” of families, but did not give a firm figure because the new deal is broader than the original class action lawsuit.

The settlement gives parents a chance to reunite and make an asylum claim, which would mean they, too, get that chance at a life in the U.S.

The Biden administration is also promising up to six months’ rental assistance, a year’s worth of medical care, ongoing trauma therapy and three-year work permits.

At one point, the Biden administration was talking about offering direct cash payments to parents, but that idea was squelched in late 2021.

The parties told the judge in a filing Monday that the current deal is “limited to injunctive relief and does not include money damages.”

U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw, who oversaw the key case challenging the zero-tolerance policy and family separations in 2018, will have the final say on the settlement.

A key element of the deal is the Biden administration’s attempt to bind future administrations.

The agreement says future separations should usually only happen in cases where a parent is deemed a national security or public safety risk, or a danger to the child. Cases where separation is medically needed, or where a parent is needed to serve as a witness, are also allowed.

In all cases, the agreement has new rules requiring better communication and usually guaranteeing reunification after things are cleared up.

The agreement specifically bars border agents and officers from referring a parent traveling with a child for prosecution because they entered the country illegally. It also discourages prosecutions in cases where a parent is illegally reentering the country after a previous deportation — which could usually be charged as a felony.

The ACLU called the future bar on separations “a critical component” of the deal.