Lankford Will Not Settle for $450,000 Payments to Illegal Border Crossers

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK – Senator James Lankford (R-OK), the lead Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Government Operations and Border Management, introduced a bill to stop the ongoing settlements between the US government and illegal migrants who were separated from their families at the border, some of which will be reportedly awarded as much as $450,000 per person and more than  $1 million per family.

Lankford’s bill would disband the Interagency Task Force on the Reunification of Families, which is at the heart of these settlements, and require the transfer of Task Force members’ salaries to reimburse the government for settlements paid to migrant families, who are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in the process. The bill ensures a court can decide whether wrongdoing occurred, rather than letting the government settle the cases behind the scenes.

“The only thing Biden is more obsessed with than abortion is enticing people to come across our very open border. Stories getting back to other countries about being able to get $450,000 after you cross the border illegally will encourage even more illegal immigration,” said Lankford. “I support keeping families together wherever possible, but I stand firmly against our government quietly paying off illegal border crossers. My bill makes sure we don’t encourage more people to come here seeking to be paid by our government to enter illegally.” 

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the Biden Administration is considering entering into settlement agreements with illegal border crossers being represented by the ACLU that would pay migrants up to $450,000 per person and over $1 million per family, with the total amount taxpayers will be forced to pay at more than $1 billion with many settlements exceeding the compensation  given to 9/11 victims. Lankford immediately slammed these payments on social media and posited that these payments would put the migrant recipients into Biden’s “rich” tax bracket since they would each receive more than $400,000 from US taxpayers.

Lankford offered this bill as an amendment in the Homeland Security Committee this week, which would have prevented the Biden Administration’s use of “sue and settle” to allow the ACLU to drive Biden’s progressive open-borders agenda and would require the money for settlements to come from the salaries of the Task Force, not American taxpayers. Democrats blocked Lankford’s amendment from passing.

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