(Nantucket, MA) — President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden spent the first part of their holiday hosting a virtual meeting with service members from around the world to wish them a happy Thanksgiving and thank them for their service.
From Coast Guard Station Brant Point in Nantucket, Massachusetts, the Bidens addressed members representing all six military branches — the Marine Corps, Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and Space Force.
After that, the president met outside with roughly two dozen members of the Coast Guard, shaking their hands and presenting them with challenge coins, which are historically collectible pieces.
The president said the “blessings of Thanksgiving are especially meaningful” this year after so many families and friends couldn’t gather last year because of surging COVID-19 cases.
“We also keep in our hearts those who we’ve lost,” the president said. “And those who have an empty seat at their kitchen table or their dining room table this year because of this virus, or another cruel twist of fate or accident, we pray for them.”
Thanksgiving in Nantucket is a decades-long tradition for the Biden family. The first lady also confirmed that they would be taking part once again in the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony Friday afternoon.
“We’re all going to be there,” she said. “We’re all going together.”
(CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.) — Four years after “Unite the Right” was held in Charlottesville, Virginia, a federal jury has ordered the white nationalist leaders and organizations who backed the deadly rally to pay more than $25 million in damages to nine plaintiffs.
The rally began as a protest against removing a prominent statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, and it turned deadly when James Alex Fields Jr., a self-proclaimed admirer of Adolf Hitler, drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring several others. Fields later was sentenced to life in prison.
The 11-person jury that announced judgment in the case of Sines v. Kessler did so on its third day of deliberations. Plaintiffs in the civil case initially had asked the jury to consider judgments ranging from $7 million to $10 million for physical injuries and $3 million to $5 million for pain and suffering.
Despite the $25 million judgment, the jury also announced it was deadlocked on the first two federal claims of the existence of a conspiracy possibly motivated by animus toward Black or Jewish individuals.
The two deadlocked federal claims in the civil lawsuit, which was filed in 2017, were based on a rarely used post-Civil War law, the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. The law allows private citizens to sue other citizens for civil rights violations and for conspiring to interfere with the civil rights of others. Some rally organizers and attendees have maintained that they merely were exercising their right to free speech.
Integrity First for America, a civil rights nonprofit that’s supported the plaintiffs in their years-long legal battle, told ABC News that the battle isn’t over.
“Our team is committed to holding these defendants liable,” Executive Director Amy Spitalnick said in a statement Tuesday. “Our plaintiffs also secured default judgments against seven other defendants that we’ll be pursuing.”
Those potential defendants include: the East Coast Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the Fraternal Order of the Alt-Knights, Nationalist Front and Moonbase Holdings, LLC, Andrew Anglin and Augustus Sol Invictus.
Following the jury’s decision, Roberta A. Kaplan and Karen L. Dunn, lawyers for one of the plaintiffs, said in a joint statement that the verdict “sends a loud and clear message that facts matter, the law matters, and that the laws of this country will not tolerate the use of violence to deprive racial and religious minorities of the basic right we all share to live as free and equal citizens.”
Added Spitalnick: “At a time when extremism is on the rise and democracy is under threat, this case provides a model for accountability.”
(WASHINGTON) — Kate Hendricks Thomas deployed to Iraq in 2005 as a member of the Marine Corps. She said she knew that choice carried risks, but she says she didn’t realize it would come back to haunt her nearly two decades later.
“I knew that deploying could cost me my life,” Thomas, now 41, told ABC News. “I didn’t think it would be like this.”
Unknown to her at the time, she said, some of the air she was breathing while deployed was toxic, laced with thousands of chemicals.
The military used burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan as a way to get rid of trash. Regular household waste items were burned, such as food and clothing. But so were more toxic substances — paint, metals, plastics, styrofoam, rubber and human waste. She said these burn pits smelled like exhaust and asphalt on a hot summer day. She said they smoldered, with billowing black smoke.
She wasn’t the only veteran exposed to these toxic fumes. Roughly 3.5 million veterans who deployed post 9/11 could have been exposed, concerned members of Congress say.
“When I checked in at Fallujah, I originally was housed in this area where everybody was cleaning their air conditioners all of the time,” Thomas said. “And it was really as soon as I got there that I realized we were cleaning this chunky particulate matter out of the filters,” she later continued.
Thomas left the Marine Corps in 2008. She went back to school, earned her Ph.D., married, and had a son. But in 2018, at the age of 38, she received shocking news: she had stage 4 breast cancer.
“They said it looked like I had been dipped in something,” Thomas remembered. “I had metastases throughout my skeletal system from my skull to my toes.”
According to a 2021 VA-funded research proposal, “there is a notably high incidence of breast cancer among younger military women (20% to 40% higher). The incident rate of breast cancer for active duty women is seven times higher than the average incident rate of fifteen other cancer types across all service members.”
Kate says she’s met “a ton” of other female veterans who have had breast cancer.
“I actually ran into the only other woman in my unit in Iraq,” Thomas said. “And she and I started chatting, and the conversation turned to health. And it turns out, she has the exact same type of aggressive breast cancer that I do. And that’s anecdotal data, it’s anecdotal evidence, but to me, that felt like a big deal.”
But many of the medical conditions allegedly caused by these toxins weren’t recognized by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Thomas immediately submitted a claim with the VA for coverage. She says she went back and forth with them for three years.
“They denied my claim, they denied appeals,” she said. “They said, ‘You know, we’re not — we’re not approving claims for burn pits right now.'”
Since then, Thomas and her family have paid thousands of dollars every year for private health insurance to pay for her medical treatments not covered by veterans’ benefits.
Expanding coverage
There are multiple ways to expand veterans’ benefits. The president can sign an executive order, Congress can pass legislation, which could then get signed into law, or the VA can choose to recognize more claims.
Last week, the Biden administration said it was establishing a new policy to help more veterans exposed to burn pits during their service overseas receive more benefits.
The Veterans Administration will now “create presumptions of exposure … when the evidence of an environmental exposure and the associated health risks are strong in the aggregate but hard to prove on an individual basis,” according to the White House. But veterans’ claims take time to be approved, and once when they are recognized it can still take months before payouts begin, according to a press conference earlier this month with Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough. The Military Times reported that it could be until May 2022 until checks are actually put in the mail.
Congress, which controls the purse strings, could also pass legislation.
“Congress sent us to war, and they need to understand that paying the full cost of war includes the health care [of veterans],” Tom Porter, the executive vice president at the IAVA, said to ABC News.
There are two bills being considered to expand benefits for veterans, one in the House and one in the Senate.
The chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., told ABC News that he believes “2021 will be the year that we get a comprehensive toxic exposure bill done.”
With little over a month left until 2022, there’s still a lot of work to be done.
Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va., a co-sponsor of the House bill and a veteran herself, believes that if passed, the measure could be expansive enough to give affected veterans what they need.
“This bill is very comprehensive,” Luria told ABC News. “And it brings together about 15 different pieces of [previous] legislation that address all different aspects of toxic exposures.” She later added that she believes this is “probably the largest veterans benefit bill of our generation.”
While there has been bipartisan support for both of these bills in the House and the Senate, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana, told ABC News there’s been some hesitancy over the cost.
“We have seen some push back by some of the Republicans that say we can’t afford to do this,” Tester said. “If we’re not willing to take care of our veterans when they get back home, then we shouldn’t send them off to war to begin with,” he later continued.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., says he has been working with the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee to make sure a full list of ailments is included in the bill.
“It is outrageous that the federal government has turned a blind eye to the men and women who honorably served their nation,” Rubio told ABC News. “If our bill becomes law, the worst thing that can happen is someone who served our country receives treatment for a rare, debilitating illness.”
While Congress negotiates, the VA is urging vets to file claims, even if they’ve been denied in the past.
“Don’t wait for legislation to be passed,” Ronald Burke, deputy under secretary for policy and oversight at the Department of Veteran Affairs, told ABC News. “Don’t wait for a claim for an item to be listed as a presumptive condition. Yes, file your claim.”
‘Six weeks is an eternity’
In July, after three years of denials, the VA finally recognized Thomas’ claim, acknowledging that her aggressive cancer was caused by exposure to toxic burn pits while she served overseas. But, the earliest appointment she could get was six weeks away.
“Six weeks is an eternity in the stage 4 setting,” Thomas said.
Thomas made the decision to keep her private insurance so she could receive quicker treatments.
While the White House’s expansion of benefits will help veterans to come — and the bills in Congress, if passed, would help too — it’s too little, too late for Thomas. Her doctors gave her five years to live. It’s been three.
Thomas has never regretted serving.
“I love the Marine Corps so much,” Thomas said. “It gave me so much — opportunities to lead, opportunities to travel the world, a sense of purpose. I felt like my work mattered.”
But she recognized there will come a time when there will be treatments she’s not willing to do.
“There will come a point where we say, ‘Okay, we’re going to have to let the cancer take its course,'” Thomas said. “But I’d really like my son to be a little bit older.”
So, she said she’s holding out hope for more time. Her son, Matthew, is just eight years old. She said she’s worried about him losing his mom at such a young age.
“And it’s interesting, because he knows,” Thomas said of her son knowing she has terminal cancer. “The other day we were talking about Jesus and heaven. And he had all these questions. And then he got very still. And his eyes filled up with tears. And he looked at me and he said, ‘Mom, it’s gonna be so sad.'”
ABC News’ Stephanie Ramos, Hannah Demissie, Tia Humphries, Luis Martinez and Nate Luna contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to announce Tuesday that the country will tap into strategic oil reserves to help offset a surge in gasoline prices, a senior administration official told ABC News.
The move will be formally announced by the White House on Tuesday morning before Biden addresses it in a speech scheduled for the afternoon, according to the official.
Experts said Americans will see a quick drop in prices almost immediately. But the larger impact won’t hit for about two weeks, when gas stations across the nation lower prices.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — The White House said Tuesday that President Joe Biden will tap into the nation’s strategic oil reserve to help offset a surge in gasoline prices.
Biden, facing rising consumer discontent ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, will make the formal announcement in remarks Tuesday afternoon, a senior administration official told ABC News.
Other countries, including China and India will release their own reserves in concert with the U.S. move, the White House said in a statement.
“Today, the President is announcing that the Department of Energy will make available releases of 50 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to lower prices for Americans and address the mismatch between demand exiting the pandemic and supply,” the White House said.
It said Biden has been working with countries across the world to address the lack of supply as the world exits the pandemic.
“And, as a result of President Biden’s leadership and our diplomatic efforts, this release will be taken in parallel with other major energy consuming nations including China, India, Japan, Republic of Korea and the United Kingdom. This culminates weeks of consultations with countries around the world, and we are already seeing the effect of this work on oil prices. Over the last several weeks as reports of this work became public, oil prices are down nearly 10 percent,” the White House said.
“The U.S. Department of Energy will make available releases of 50 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in two ways: 32 million barrels will be an exchange over the next several months, releasing oil that will eventually return to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the years ahead. The exchange is a tool matched to today’s specific economic environment, where markets expect future oil prices to be lower than they are today, and helps provide relief to Americans immediately and bridge to that period of expected lower oil prices. The exchange also automatically provides for re-stocking of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve over time to meet future needs,” the statement said.
Experts said Americans will see a quick drop in prices almost immediately. But the larger impact won’t hit for about two weeks, when gas stations across the nation lower prices.
A senior administration official, citing a low global supply of oil that is contributing to driving up fuel costs, said the decision has been made to ease costs on everyday American consumers as pressures between demand and the easing of the pandemic create unique conditions.
“We think that this is an immediate challenge that we face as we are exiting the global pandemic and supply has not kept up,” the official told reporters Tuesday morning. “We think that this is exactly suited to that.”
ABC’s Sarah Kolinovsky and Jordyn Phelps contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — First lady Jill Biden kicked off the holiday season in the nation’s capital on Monday by accepting delivery of the official White House Christmas tree — with all the sleigh bells and whistles one might expect.
This year’s tree — an 18.5-foot Fraser fir — hails from Jefferson, North Carolina. The White House welcome event on Monday afternoon marked 56 years of the tradition.
The tree arrived at the White House Portico on an evergreen-colored carriage decked out in holiday greenery and pulled down the driveway by two Clydesdale horses — Ben and Winston — who were adorned with silver sleigh bells and with paper Christmas trees in their braids. A four-piece band played Christmas classics, including “O, Christmas Tree” and “O, Come All Ye Faithful,” as the tree was delivered.
Wearing a red coat and a white dress, the first lady accepted the Christmas tree in apparent delight following a quick quality inspection.
“It’s beautiful — it’s magnificent, actually,” she told reporters when asked what she thought of the tree.
This tree will be on display in the Blue Room, where the chandelier will be temporarily removed to accommodate the full height of the tree, according to the White House.
Following the first lady’s acceptance, the Christmas tree will be decorated for the holiday season.
In addition to the Estes family, which provided the tree after winning the National Christmas Tree Contest for their third year, the first lady also invited the Harrell Family to mark the occasion, to represent and honor the families of active National Guard members who are spending the holidays apart this year.
A National Guard mom herself, Biden intended to honor the role of the National Guard this year in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the White House said.
Biden’s family was also on hand for the acceptance including son Hunter and his son, Beau Jr., whom the first lady handed a branch that she plucked from the tree.
The first lady has not yet announced the theme of this year’s decorations at the White House, expected to be unveiled in the coming days.
She told reporters her message for service members this holiday season is to “be safe and have a happy, healthy holiday.”
ABC News’ Sarah Kolinovsky contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Millions of American workers have returned to the office, and most children are back to in-person learning at schools, but dozens of members of the U.S. House of Representatives are still literally phoning in their votes to Washington, citing an “ongoing public health emergency.”
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, House Democrats took the unprecedented step to establish rules allowing any lawmaker to vote by proxy if he or she could not attend proceedings in-person because of the pandemic.
As the virus recedes and most members of Congress are vaccinated, critics say some members of Congress are abusing a public health policy for personal convenience, politics or other family matters.
A total of 103 U.S. Representatives had active proxy letters filed with the House Clerk as of publication.
“We do want members to take seriously their responsibilities to participate in a legislative process, to cast votes on the floor of the House,” said Molly E. Reynolds, a Brookings Institution senior fellow and expert on how Congress functions. “Figuring out how to prevent abuse of the practice while also making it available for people who need it is a real challenge.”
Each time a proxy is used, a member of Congress must attest in writing to the House Clerk that they are “unable to physically attend proceedings” for health or safety reasons related to COVID-19. Enforcement is by the honor system.
“They don’t want to come in unless they are vaccinated and unless others are vaccinated,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi explained in March.
At least 343 representatives — Democrats and Republicans — have filed a notice to vote remotely at least once this year, according to data compiled by Reynolds. The U.S. Senate did not enact a proxy system during the pandemic.
During Friday’s major vote on Democrats’ sweeping $1.75 trillion Build Back Better plan, 98 lawmakers who voted didn’t show up in person, a review of voting records found.
“Graph the number of proxies, and look at how they increase exponentially on Fridays,” said Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc., one of the most outspoken critics of proxy voting. “It’s incentivizing the worst behavior among members, which is to say prioritizing fundraising and deprioritizing legislating.”
Nearly all House Republicans opposed proxy voting when it began last year, but some have since taken advantage of the flexibility. In one of the most prominent examples, 13 Republicans voted remotely in February while attending the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) conference in Orlando.
Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., who was among the CPAC attendees, voted by proxy more than a dozen times this year, despite strong public opposition to the policy and criticizing Democrats who used it as “cowards” for not showing up.
Cawthorn declined comment to ABC News when approached on Capitol Hill. His office also did not respond to an email from ABC.
“I think it’s a bad thing; personally, I don’t think we need to be doing it at this point,” said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., who has criticized proxy voting but also used it. “It’s in the rules. You can use it.”
Rule or not, Republican Party leaders have argued in court that proxy voting is outright unconstitutional. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has even appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to strike it down.
“I think people should be here to work to have to be paid when you don’t. When you proxy vote, you’re not here to debate the bill. You’re not in committee [hearings]. It’s wrong,” McCarthy told ABC News in an interview.
McCarthy would not comment on why so many fellow Republicans have disregarded his admonishment and voted by proxy.
Democrats have voted by proxy more often than Republicans, according to data tabulated by Reynolds at the Brookings Institution. Sometimes for reasons clearly related to COVID-19, but sometimes for reasons that are less clear, she told ABC News.
Democratic Congressman Ron Kind, of Wisconsin, for example, voted remotely on seven bills in June while President Joe Biden was visiting his state. When approached by ABC News, he said that some of his recent proxy votes came after a positive COVID diagnosis for a member of his staff.
“It’s a good thing when you have legitimate reasons to be away,” said Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass. “I have two young girls… I used [proxy voting] when my daughter was born, for example, and I’ve used it when my daughter was sick just the week before last.”
Members of both parties have used remote voting while caring for a sick or dying parent, or when flight delays have kept them stranded far from Washington. Each time, however, they officially attested to the Clerk that the “ongoing public health emergency” kept them from being unable to attend.
“My wife had our first child 16 months ago, I missed votes. But that’s how it was,” Gallagher said. “You missed votes for legitimate reasons, but proxy voting gets us closer to a nonessential Congress, or a Congress that’s just, you know, zooming in to work every day.”
Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., who regularly casts votes for absent Democratic colleagues, told ABC News it’s about time everyone gets back to debating and voting in person in Congress.
“The original purpose was just for people who either, where it just wasn’t safe to fly or they had some preexisting condition, including being too old,” Beyer said. “Now, when people start going to conferences or something, that’s a little different.”
Florida Democrats Charlie Crist and Darren Soto voted by proxy last year the same day as attending a planned SpaceX rocket launch in their home state, but told the House Clerk they couldn’t vote in person because of the pandemic.
Several Republicans and Democrats have used the proxy system while attending political events outside Washington.
“That’s something voters should be worried about,” Reynolds said, “but I don’t think they should automatically assume that just because their member has been voting by proxy, their member hasn’t been working.”
On Nov. 12, Pelosi announced an extension of proxy voting through the end of the year.
“While some have misused proxy-voting for non-pandemic reasons, it remains a vital protection for the health of Members who may be immunocompromised or be particularly at risk for life threatening complications from COVID,” a House leadership aide told ABC News in a statement.
“All across the country, people are getting back to work or schools are opening up again. Congress ought to be working again,” said Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La. Asked why so many of his GOP peers are still voting remotely, he replied: “Obviously every member has got to make their own choices while it’s there as an option.”
The option to participate in Congress remotely remains controversial and unprecedented. And as growing numbers of Americans return to in-person work, many may expect their elected representatives to do the same.
“Figuring out how to protect the process for people who genuinely need it, and while also preventing abuse is going to be a real challenge for an extremely polarized and partisan House of Representatives going forward,” Reynolds said.
(WASHINGTON) — Al Schmidt had a front-row seat to history when a batch of votes in Philadelphia tipped the state of Pennsylvania, and the 2020 presidential election, toward Joe Biden.
As Philadelphia’s Republican city commissioner, Schmidt had been holed up for days in the convention center, making sure every vote, mail-in or in-person, was counted.
“For us, it’s really never about who wins and who loses,” Schmidt told ABC News. “It’s really about counting, counting the votes.”
He defended the vote count and integrity of the election — only to find himself a target of former President Donald Trump. Four days after the race was called, Trump tweeted at Schmidt saying, without evidence, that he had refused to look at “a mountain of corruption and dishonesty.”
Schmidt said that’s when the threats against his life and his family started to ramp up.
“They became a lot more specific, a lot more graphic, largely targeted at my family, my kids,” he said. “Mentioning my children by name, my address, pictures of my house. Like the people who sent them had clearly done their homework.”
Schmidt is among a long list of state and local election officials facing increasing threats, fueling what some say is an unprecedented exodus.
A recent survey by the Brennan Center for Justice found 1 in 3 election officials nationwide feels unsafe at work. Nearly 1 in 5 called threats to their lives a job-related concern.
“There is, I’m sure, no election official in the country that when they ran for the job … ever contemplated death threats, let alone death threats to their children as being part of that job description,” Schmidt said.
In Pennsylvania, nearly half of county election directors have resigned since 2019, according to Lisa Schaefer of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania. She said many others cite personal and violent threats.
“These are people who are getting called and yelled at constantly by their friends and their neighbors for things that are often out of their control,” Schaefer said.
It’s not just local election officials in swing states getting targeted.
Democrat Roxanna Moritz resigned in the wake of the 2020 election as the auditor and commissioner of elections in Scott County, Iowa, after more than a decade on the job. She cited a culture of bullying toward election officials, who often work long hours with little pay, because “we care about our democracy.”
“The personal attacks on each and every one of us has made of us aware this maybe isn’t where we want to be,” Moritz told ABC News.
Election experts warn about the loss of institutional knowledge in this wave of resignations from roles that are historically above the political fray.
Another concern, according to Elizabeth Howard of the Brennan Center for Justice, is who will replace the officials who resign.
“We’ve seen, for instance, some candidates for secretary of state, which is generally the chief election official in the state, who have come out and said that they basically believe in the ‘Big Lie,'” that Trump was cheated out of an election win, Howard said.
ABC News has previously reported on new state laws that shift election administration to highly partisan bodies, as part of a broader effort to shift power away from officials who refuted the “Big Lie.” Some of these changes to election laws appear to be in direct retaliation of officials who defended the integrity of the 2020 results.
In Maricopa County, Arizona, Bill Gates is a Republican on the board of supervisors overseeing elections. His county has become a hotbed of election misinformation despite several recounts and audits confirming President Joe Biden’s win.
“I have to plead with these folks to listen to me to the truth that I’m telling them, because they’ve been told lies for a year now, and they believe it,” he told ABC News.
More than a year after the election, Gates said he’s still targeted daily online, and called a traitor who should be jailed.
“There have been evenings where we have literally spent the night at an Airbnb because of threats,” he told ABC News. “There are nights where we have slept with sheriff’s deputies outside of the house because of these threats.”
Gates and Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt both said fighting election misinformation is proving to be a critical test of American democracy.
“I think there is an additional obligation on Republicans like myself to speak the truth about the 2020 election and to stand up in the face of all of these lies, regardless of what the consequences are for any of us,” Schmidt said. “With our democracy on the line, pretty much anything, it’s worth it.”
(NEW YORK) — Leticia works at a bakery helping to prepare the pastries that hungry New Yorkers order with their coffee in the morning. At first glance, she’s like any other person in the city. But in 2017, she fled Guatemala with her son Yovany and made her way toward the border in Texas.
“At the moment we crossed, we were happy. We thought our lives were saved, that all the danger was behind us,” she said in Spanish in an interview with ABC News’ Zachary Kiesch. “We couldn’t imagine that a greater pain, a stronger pain, was ahead of us.”
Once they crossed, she and her son were detained by Border Patrol agents and quickly separated as they tried to submit an asylum claim. Leticia, whose last name is being withheld for privacy, was deported and Yovany was placed in foster care. They did not see each other for over two years.
They were among the first migrant families subjected to a pilot program for what later became the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy.
Leticia and Yovany could be one of the families qualifying for compensation if the Biden administration decides to make settlement payments to migrants who were separated from their children by the Trump administration.
Now reunited in the United States, mother and son continue to live in fear of being separated again while their asylum case is pending.
“It was a pain that I still carry with me. It’s still hurting me,” Yovany said in Spanish. “I continue living with that fear that I will be separated from her again.”
The potential settlement payments, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, are part of an ongoing federal lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union seeking damages for separated families. Earlier this month, President Joe Biden dismissed reports that payments of up to $450,000 were being discussed, but expressed his support for some kind of compensation.
“If, in fact, because of the outrageous behavior of the last administration, you coming across the border, whether it was legally or illegally, and you lost your child — you lost your child — it’s gone. You deserve compensation no matter what the circumstance,” Biden said. “What that will be, I have no idea. I have no idea.”
In 2019, a federal judge ruled that Leticia’s deportation had been unlawful because she did not voluntarily accept deportation and sign away her parental rights. Immigration officials did not provide her an interpreter or explain that they were separating her from Yovany.
“It was totally in English. I didn’t know what I was signing,” Leticia said. “Even today I still don’t know what it is I signed.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas this week, with support for the reported settlements appearing to fall along party lines.
ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt said the reports about settlements have been politicized and that there is no time frame on when a decision will be made in regards to the amount of money families would receive and who would be eligible.
“This is not about whether we all agree on macro-immigration policy. This is whether the United States is going to make little children pawns in this political fight,” Gelernt said. “These families, according to all of the medical experts, have suffered severe trauma — literally being pulled away.”
Leticia said she draws strength from her Indigenous roots, but her courage and faith were tested during those long months when she didn’t know where her son was located. Despite the close bond they continue to share, she said there was some initial distrust when they were finally reunited.
“When I saw him, I noticed there was a feeling of ‘Why would you leave me?'” she told ABC News. “He didn’t tell me with his words but as a mother, I knew.”
Fear of abandonment, depression and anxiety are just a few of the challenges families like Leticia’s face when they’re finally reunited.
“Money is not everything in the world,” Leticia said of the possible payments. “It won’t return our happiness, it won’t return our health. But it can help start to remediate the trauma and the pain they caused us when they violated our human rights.”
The Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project has been helping support her and Yovany while they wait for their asylum case to be heard.
“Reunification is truly only the first step that the government must take for these families. After they reunify, these families have to navigate a complex immigration system that is stacked against them in every way,” said Leidy Pérez-Davis, policy director at the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project.
The Biden administration’s reunification task force has found that more than 3,900 children were separated under by the “zero-tolerance” policy. Gelernt estimated that there are still over 1,000 families that have yet to be reunited and at least 270 that have not even been located.
“I hope this serves as an example for future governments to never repeat the same damage and trauma they’ve caused,” said Leticia.
(WASHINGTON) — It was a question that plagued Joe Biden’s presidential campaign: Could a 77-year-old man — who at age 78 would be the oldest person ever to assume the presidency — handle the rigors of the job?
Candidate Biden acknowledged it was legitimate for Americans to question his fitness for office.
“The only thing I can say is watch. Watch! Check my energy level, determine whether I know what I’m talking about,” he told voters during the 2020 campaign.
Now, on Friday, nearly a year into his term, Biden has gotten his first physical as president at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
It came the day before he turns 79.
After about five hours inside, Biden walked out giving two thumbs up.
“I’m doing great!” Biden told ABC News Correspondent Karen Travers, when asked how he was feeling. “I’ve had a great physical and a great House of Representatives vote. Good day,” Biden said, referring to House Democrats passing his “Build Back Better” plan earlier in the day.
Shortly before he arrived, the White House revealed that for some of the exam he would be under anesthesia and would briefly transfer power to Vice President Kamala Harris.
“This morning, the President will travel to Walter Reed Medical Center for a routine physical. While he is there, the President will undergo a routine colonoscopy,” press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement.
“As was the case when President George W. Bush had the same procedure in 2002 and 2007, and following the process set out in the Constitution, President Biden will transfer power to the Vice President for the brief period of time when he is under anesthesia. The Vice President will work from her office in the West Wing during this time,” she said.
Around noon, the White House said it sent letters at 10:10 a.m. to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Patrick Leahy, president pro tempore of the Senate, to inform them Biden was going under sedation. The House speaker is second in line to the presidency after the vice president and the president pro tempore of the Senate is third in line under the 25th Amendment dictating the order of presidential succession.
Psaki tweeted that Biden had spoken with Harris and chief of staff Ron Klain at approximately 11:35 a.m., saying “@POTUS was in good spirits and at that time resumed his duties.”
Letter to the Speaker of the House on the Temporary Transfer of the Powers and Duties of President of the U… by ABC News Politics on Scribd
Late Friday afternoon, the White House put out a promised detailed medical summary.
Biden is a ‘healthy, vigorous 78-year-old man,” who is “fit for duty” and “fully executes all of his responsibilities without exemptions or accommodations,” the president’s physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor wrote.
While Biden got a mostly clean bill of health, O’Connor — who has been Biden’s doctor since 2009 — noted two specific observations: his frequent throat clearing, and a stiffened gate, compared to last year.
“The president has exhibited increasing frequency and severity of “throat clearing” and coughing during speaking engagements,” O’Connor wrote. “He has exhibited such symptoms for as long as I have known him, but they certainly seem more frequent and more pronounced over the last few months.”
O’Connor noted that Biden being president and the increased attention could be playing into the perception of the symptoms, but required further investigation. Ultimately though, O’Connor said that his initial assessment that “gastroesophageal reflux” was to blame for the cough still stands.
Of his stiffened gate, O’Connor said Biden acknowledges that he is stiff in the morning, though it improves over time. O’Connor said that after a battery of tests, general “wear and tear” of the spine was partly to blame– though no specific treatment was needed.
A new finding for Biden was a “mild peripheral neuropathy in both feet.”
“He did not demonstrative any motor weakness, but a subtle difference in heat/cold perception and great toe proprioception could be elicited,” O’Connor wrote, noting this, along with the wear and tear could contribute to the stiffened gate, and “Physical Therapy and exercise prescription will continue to focus on general flexibility and proprioceptive maintenance maneuvers.”
Biden’s regular screening colonoscopy found a 3mm benign-looking polyp was identified in the in ascending colon, and was removed without difficulty, the report said.
To date, the most recent physical and medical report was one his campaign released in December 2019: a three-page summary that declared Biden “a healthy, vigorous, 77-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.”
At the time, Biden was said to be under treatment for four different conditions: non-valvular atrial fibrillation — a type of irregular heart rhythm, hyperlipidemia — higher concentrations of fats or lipids in the blood, gastroesophageal reflux and seasonal allergies.
The most notable health incidents in Biden’s past were the two cranial aneurysms he suffered in 1988.
Since winning the presidency, Biden suffered a fractured foot after falling while chasing his dog Major at his Wilmington, Delaware, home last Thanksgiving. He had to wear a walking boot for the injury, and was said to be “healing as expected,” according to scans from a follow-up appointment in December.
Biden named O’Connor as his White House physician shortly after taking office.
O’Connor has served as Biden’s primary care physician and was appointed physician to the then-vice president in 2009. Biden chose him for the new role due to their long history and personal relationship, according to a White House official.
Questions about fitness for office are far from exclusive to Biden — President Donald Trump, who was the oldest president elected before Biden, also faced questions about his mental and physical fitness.
Trump faced particular scrutiny for the first physical of his administration in January 2018, which his then-White House physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson, said went “exceptionally well.”
He came under fire for his effusively rosy outlook on Trump’s health while briefing reporters afterward.
In other recent administrations, physicals have generally been conducted within a president’s first year in office.
President George W. Bush got a physical in August 2001, and was found to be “fit for duty” with “every reasonable expectation that he will remain fit for duty for the duration of his Presidency.”
President Barack Obama received his first physical in office just over a year into his presidency, in February 2010. He also was found to be in “excellent health,” although doctors told hi to stop smoking.
At her news briefing Friday, Psaki declined to detail any actions Harris took during her 85 minutes as “acting president,” but observed the moment’s historic nature.
“I will leave that to her team to characterize. I know that other people have been talking about this and a woman myself, I will note that the president, when he selected her to be his running mate, obviously knew he was making history that was long overdue in our view,” she said.
“Part of that was selecting someone who would serve by your side as your partner, but also … step in if there was a reason to,” Psaki said.
ABC News’ John Parkinson contributed to this report.
