EDITORIAL: Don’t pay people who came here illegally

If you think illegal immigration is a problem now, just wait. The Biden administration is reportedly considering payouts to those who crossed the border illegally.

Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Biden administration is considering giving $450,000 to migrant children and parents separated at the border during the Trump administration. The money would go to each person, so a parent and child could receive almost $1 million, according to the WSJ’s sources. Some of the payouts could be smaller.

These potential payouts would settle lawsuits against the government that allege lasting emotional damage from the separation policy.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which is involved in some of the lawsuits, claims the Trump administration separated around 5,500 children. Less than 1,000 claims have been filed so far, but that number will almost certainly increase if this settlement goes through.

In total, this agreement could cost taxpayers more than $1 billion.

No, this story didn’t come from a conservative parody site, like The Babylon Bee.

Paying people who knowingly broke our country’s laws is a terrible precedent.

But along with the principle, the money involved is substantial. The military’s death gratuity program offers a service member’s surviving family $100,000. The top payout of the military’s life insurance program — which requires premiums — is $400,000. Think about the priorities here. The amount proposed per person is comparable to what the family of a soldier who died for his or her country would receive.

Then, there’s the role of liberal activist groups in creating this crisis. The Trump administration didn’t separate families to be cruel. It was required by the Flores Settlement, which the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals imposed in the 1990s. That required the government to release minors within 20 days if they weren’t deported. If someone claims asylum, it can take more than two months to process his or her claim. For almost two decades, the settlement only applied to unaccompanied minors. But after Central American migrants sued in 2015, the 9th Circuit said it applied to children in family units.

The Obama administration’s solution was to release families who claimed asylum. When Trump wanted to discourage illegal immigration, he had to follow this settlement from the nation’s most liberal circuit court.

Now, the ACLU, a left-of-center group, is suing the government for the consequences of abiding by it.

The border is already a disaster. If the Biden administration approves giving checks to those who came here illegally, it will only get worse.