Biden should remember Americans harmed by foreign powers if he compensates migrants

The Biden administration is strongly considering paying migrant families detained and separated by U.S. officials after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. According to news reports, the U.S. is preparing to pay out nearly a half-million dollars per person, or nearly $1 million per family — though the president denied this when asked, leading to some confusion about the plan. 

Whether this is morally and politically the right move is for others to decide. Should the payments be made, President Biden should consider his obligation as well to Americans citizens egregiously harmed or killed by foreign powers and state-sponsored terrorist groups.

Survivors of the Iran Hostage Crisis — myself included — and our families were wronged by a foreign power. The Islamic Republic of Iran held Americans for 444 days. The trauma of captivity lingers to this day. But we cannot sue the Islamic Republic like migrants can sue the U.S. government. We are barred from doing so under the terms of the agreement that precipitated our release. 

To right that wrong, Congress responded in 2015 by passing legislation creating the United States Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism (USVSST) Fund and authorizing a payment of $4.4 million, or $10,000 for each day we were held in captivity, to survivors. A lesser amount was authorized for our immediate families.

Only a tiny fraction of these funds has been paid, however, because the USVSST Fund is dependent upon revenue derived from the enforcement of U.S. sanctions. Congress compounded the challenge of paying survivors and their families by adding the families of victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and survivors to the list of all those eligible for payment from the fund. 

An equitable decision would have been to weigh payments more heavily toward those who have waited the longest. A smart decision would have been to pay the victims of Iranian terror with the revenue collected from the sale of Iranian oil and petrochemicals seized from vessels carrying the illicit cargo. In May, the U.S. government sold more than 2 million barrels of Iranian crude oil for $110 million. That sale alone would have cleared nearly half of the fund’s total obligations to former hostages and their families if payouts had been targeted to specific enforcement. 

The executive branch has the authority, through Attorney General Merrick Garland, to allocate the money and pay in full the longest-tenured members of the class covered by the fund — but Biden has not, nor did his predecessors, of course. If nothing changes, neither the victims of the Iran Hostage Crisis nor those of the 9/11 attacks will live to see a full and complete payout because the fund cannot possibly pay all of its eligible members based on the way it is presently organized.

The decision to pay damages to migrants, however, can and should upend the conversation about American victims and their families. It should prompt Congress and the Biden administration to take action and make whole the Americans harmed by terrorists and state sponsors of terrorism. After all, from the same moral and political point of view, if the U.S. government is willing to pay damages to migrants, then the government should similarly compensate American victims of state-sponsored terror who were targeted entirely based on nationality.

Rather than making the victims wait, the Treasury Department — which will outlast us all — can pay itself back with revenue stemming from the enforcement of U.S. sanctions violations.

This should be a moment of introspection to wrestle with who we are, what we believe, and what we value as Americans. I believe that President Biden wants to right the wrongs of the past and ultimately change the narrative of the nation. He cannot succeed, however, if Americans with no recourse are forgotten.

Barry Rosen, the last U.S. Press Attaché to Iran, was one of the 52 Americans held hostage in Iran from 1979-81. He is a senior adviser to United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI). Follow him on Twitter @brosen1501.