President Joe Biden said Saturday that he supports compensating migrant families that were separated under the Trump administration's zero-tolerance immigration policy.
"Now here’s the thing. If in fact because of the outrageous behavior of the last administration, you coming across the border, whether it was legal or illegal, and you lost your child," Biden said during a press conference on the passage of a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. "You lost your child. It’s gone. You deserve some kind of compensation, no matter what the circumstance. What that will be, I have no idea."
He also clarified his remarks from earlier this week, when he called the report about the administration planning to pay $450,000 to migrant families separated under Trump "garbage," saying that the plans to pay the families were not false, just the dollar amount.
WATCH: Biden bizarrely yells at a reporter when confronted about offering cash payments to illegal immigrants for breaking the law. pic.twitter.com/k0CBCgvnmQ
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Payments to migrant families would be part of settlements reached through lawsuits filed against the federal government over treatment endured during the Trump administration. Under the zero-tolerance policy, thousands of children were housed in shelters while their parents were prosecuted.
The White House said Thursday that the government would look to reach settlements with the families in an effort to both save taxpayer dollars and put the "disastrous history" of the zero-tolerance immigration policy used under the Trump administration "behind us."
The Biden administration received heavy criticism over reports of the payments to migrants, particularly because such compensation would be greater than payments made to Gold Star families.