https://nypost.com/2021/11/04/biden-either-lying-was-never-told-or-forgot-about-migrant-payouts
The New York Post editorial board reacted to President Biden's surprising answer to a question in yesterday's press conference. In case you missed that exchange yesterday, here it is:
Reporter: "Mr. President, as you were leaving for your overseas trip, there were reports that were surfacing that your administration is planning to pay illegal immigrants who are separated from their families at the border up to $450,000 each, possibly a million dollars per family. Do you think that that might incentivize more people to come over illegally?"
President: "If you guys keep sending that garbage out, yeah. But it’s not true."
Reporter: "So, this is a garbage report?"
President: "Yeah. Four hundred and fifty — four hundred and fifty thousand dollars per person. Is that what you’re saying? That’s not going to happen."
Even if the U.S. government were to offer a settlement to families that were separated at the border, why not make them an either/or offer: money OR a legal "pathway to remain in the country"? Why offer them both? The more we offer, the more we incentivize millions of others to cross our southern border, regardless of our immigration laws.
The NYPost concluded that Biden either forgot, or lied, or didn't know what his own Justice Department was planning on doing. I suggest a fourth possiblity: Following the strong negative reaction to the WSJ story revealing these proposed payouts and in the wake of the Virginia election results, which were disastrous for Democrats, the president and his team may have decided to drop the proposal.
We shall see.