(Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
My latest New York Post column looks at the rich payments that the Biden administration is considering giving to families separated at the border by the Trump administration:
This is a scandalous giveaway that would reward lawbreakers and enrich activist lawyers. There’s nothing wrong with settling these cases, but the size of the payoffs is wildly excessive. $900,000 is more than twice the $400,000 payment made to the families of American servicemen killed in war. It is more than what some families of 9/11 victims received. This, for people who knowingly broke the law…In a lawsuit, if you think you were in the wrong, you should be willing to settle. But a settlement is a compromise. Both sides look at their chances of losing at trial, and they look at what the size of a verdict might be. A good settlement discounts the likely verdict by the odds of losing and the money each side saves by not going to trial…The lawyers who brought the suits, including the ACLU, know full well that there would be challenges proving their case and more challenges proving that their clients suffered nearly a million dollars’ worth of emotional distress resulting from family separations.