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Joe Biden branded a ‘liar’ for denying plans to give illegal immigrants $450,000

The Biden administration plans to pay close to $1m to  families separated at the border under the Trump administration.

By Donna Rachel Edmunds, World Israel News

U.S. President Joe Biden has been branded a “liar” after he publicly denied his administration would be paying nearly half a million dollars to migrants illegally crossing the border, despite plans by the Justice Department to do just that.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services are looking at awarding payments of up to $450,000 per person, or close to a million per family, to parents and children who were separated at the border during the Trump administration, as compensation for psychological trauma. A number of families have already filed lawsuits claiming damages.

But when Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked Biden during a White House press conference Wednesday whether the payments could incentivize illegal immigration, the President shot back: “If you guys keep sending that garbage out? Yeah. But it’s not true.”

“So this is a garbage report?” Doocy clarified.

“Yeah. $450,000 per person — is that what you’re saying?” Biden replied. “That’s not gonna happen.”

The ACLU, which represents families in one of the lawsuits, later issued a statement suggesting Biden “may not have been fully briefed about the actions of his very own Justice Department.”

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ACLU executive director Anthony Romero cautioned Biden that he would be “abandoning a core campaign promise to do justice for the thousands of separated families,” if the policy did not go through, adding: “We respectfully remind President Biden that he called these actions ‘criminal’ in a debate with then-President Trump, and campaigned on remedying and rectifying the lawlessness of the Trump administration.”

The ACLU has identified about 5,500 children separated at the border from their parents. Officials have said that the total number of families coming forward to claim the payment could be smaller, but so far claims have been filed by around 940 families, meaning a potential payout of 1 billion or more.

But the denial by Biden has prompted New York Post columnist Miranda Devine to pen a scathing column Sunday, in which she accused the President of “suffering from a bad case of malarkey syndrome.”

On Thursday, White House Deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre walked back the President’s comments on the policy, claiming that Biden was “perfectly comfortable” with the payments, and was merely suggesting that the figure of $450,000 may not be accurate.

Jean-Pierre ran into hot water herself with Doocy, on Friday when he asked: “There is a long line to get into this country legally. Is there any kind of discussion about giving people who are coming here the right way money?”

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Jean-Pierre replied: “Why would we be giving people who are coming here the right way money?”

To which Doocy countered: “Why are you giving people who came here the wrong way money?”

“I don’t understand the question,” Jean-Pierre said, before referring Doocy to the department of Justice.

“A lot of people would have heard Biden’s denial and missed the White House walk-back. And that’s no accident,” Devine charged. “The day after an election in which his party was shellacked across the nation, the president knew that a policy of rewarding foreigners for breaking our laws was kryptonite to voters.

“So he did what he has done all his career. He lied.”