Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis

by Jonathan Blitzer

In the final weeks of December 2021, after ten months of negotiations, the Biden administration withdrew from settlement talks with the ACLU to provide financial compensation to the families separated at the border. The move was a shock even to administration officials. Previously, the president had left little room to doubt what he thought of the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy. In November, he had said of the parents, “You deserve some kind of compensation, no matter what.” What had changed his mind? In October, The Wall Street Journal reported that advocates were asking the government to consider giving $450,000 to each family member who had been separated. This number wasn’t final; the DOJ hadn’t agreed to it, and the government’s opening bid in the negotiations was substantially lower. But the GOP wasted no time using the figure to attack Biden. Already, Republican attorneys general in several states had filed lawsuits to block every immigration initiative that the president had issued since taking office. In virtually all cases, they were succeeding.