Eight illegal alien families who were separated at the U.S. border after crossing unlawfully are now suing the Trump administration for a whopping $6 million.
Each.
According to ABC News, one plaintiff, a Guatemalan woman, said she and her son were detained after crossing the border illegally in May, then reunited in July before being released into the United States in November. Now she’s suing, saying she and her son were mistreated while in custody and were separated even after she asked that they not be, claiming that her son only spoke an indigenous Guatemalan language other than Spanish.
The woman’s lawyer now says she’s suing the government for their “inexplicable cruelty.”
“The government was harming children intentionally to advance what it viewed as a policy objective,” Attorney Stanton Jones said, according to ABC. “It’s heinous and immoral, but it’s also a civil wrong for which the law provides a claim for relief.”
Jones made no mention of the “civil wrong” that occurred when the unnamed woman and her son first crossed the border illegally in full defiance of U.S. immigration law.
The Trump administration has affirmed it implemented a “family separation policy” at the U.S. border whenever immigration officials couldn’t determine that an adult and a child who’d crossed together had a verified familial relationship, a problem that’s sometimes led to horrific cases of human smuggling, abuse and sex trafficking. This same policy was also implemented under both the Obama and the Bush administrations.
However, these few families, who are now suing for a total $48 million, say their children have been “traumatized” by the policy, even after being reunited with their parents.
The claims for compensation have been turned over to the Departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, who now have six months to respond to the claims before the illegal aliens can sue.