Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asks President Biden about reports of $450,000 payments to illegal alien families separated at the border Nov. 3, 2021 (Screen capture)
The ACLU says President Biden didn't known what he was talking about when he dismissed as "garbage" reports that illegal immigrant families separated at the border will receive payments of $450,000 per individual from his administration and possibly $1 million per family.
On Wednesday, Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked Biden at the White House if the payments will "incentivize" people to illegally enter the country.
"If you guys keep sending that garbage out, yeah," the president replied. "But it's not true."
"So this is a garbage report?" Doocy followed.
"Yeah," Biden said.
But ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said in a statement Wednesday that Biden apparently is out of the loop.
"President Biden may not have been fully briefed about the actions of his very own Justice Department as it carefully deliberated and considered the crimes committed against thousands of families separated from their children as an intentional governmental policy," Romero said.
Peter Doocy asked Biden if a report claiming his administration will pay families separated at the border will "incentivize" people to illegally enter the country.
Biden: "If you guys keep sending that garbage out, yea..."
Doocy: "So this is a garbage report?"
Biden: "Yea!" pic.twitter.com/b32MkV5TiO
— Mediaite (@Mediaite) November 3, 2021
The ACLU boss said Biden "is abandoning a core campaign promise to do justice for the thousands of separated families."
"We respectfully remind Biden that he called these actions 'criminal' in a debate with President Trump, and campaigned on remedying and rectifying the lawlessness of the Trump administration," Romero said.
On Twitter, the ACLU called on Biden "to right the wrongs of this national tragedy."
The Wall Street Journal was first to report that the federal government was considering payments of $450,000 to individuals affected by the policy.
The ACLU filed a class action lawsuit in 2019 seeking damages for families, and attorneys representing families filed separate claims.
In response to the 2019 border crisis, President Trump instituted a "zero-tolerance" policy, prosecuting every illegal border crosser and detaining children in separate facilities before being sent to a shelter and eventually a sponsor family.
The Trump administration argued it simply was enforcing existing law, noting that illegal-alien families were separated under the Obama administration as well. And further, the policy deterred people from making the dangerous journey in the first place.
The Obama administration did not keep track of the number of children separated from their parents, according to Trump DHS officials.
Leon Fresco, a deputy assistant attorney general under Obama, defended the Obama administration's use of family detention in court, McClatchy reported in 2019.
Fresco said there were cases in which the administration held fathers who were carrying drugs or other contraband who had to be separated from their children.
"ICE could not devise a safe way where men and children could be in detention together in one facility," Fresco said. "It was deemed too much of a security risk."
Obama was criticized at one point in his administration for detaining mothers and children to deter future illegal immigration.
He confirmed the separation of children and defended the policy in an interview in 2014 with ABC's George Stephanopoulos.
FLASHBACK: Obama addresses "humanitarian crisis" at border in 2014.
"The problem is under current law, once the kids come across the border, there’s a system in which we’re supposed to process them, take care of them...
Our message is absolutely don t send your children" pic.twitter.com/orOGHaUSGB
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) June 18, 2019
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