Separated families

The Biden administration announced it would pay immigrant families who were separated from their children under the Trump policy. Trump said that since the families broke the law in crossing the border they were arrested. Once they were arrested they were put in jail and the law says the children cannot be put in jail so they were separated. Trump followed the law in order to discourage other families from coming. The complaint by those who opposed this action was that children were separated from families just to keep other families from coming. If parents who are US citizens are arrested and sent to jail they are separated from their children because that is the law. The argument comes down to should families who enter the country illegally and thus break the law be separated as are families of US citizens or should they receive special treatment.