Biden was speaking at a press conference encouraging the $1.2trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill when he was asked about the payments.
Fox News' David Spunt asked: "You said last week that this report about migrant families at the border getting payments was garbage."
Biden interrupted: "No, I didn't say that. Let's get it straight, you said everybody coming across the border gets $450,000."
"If in fact, because of the outrageous behavior of the last administration, you came across the border - whether it was legal or illegal."
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The president then added with a sharper tone: "And you lost your child, you lost your child, it's gone, you deserve some kind of compensation, no matter what the circumstance," he said. "What that will be, I have no idea."
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Last week it was revealed that officials from the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services are viewing the payments that could reach close to $1 million for two people within the same family, people familiar with the plans told the Wall Street Journal.
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The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the separated families, has found about 5,500 children separated from parents at the border during the course of the Trump-era policy.
Former President Trump's administration passed the separation policy in April 2018 and dropped it two months later after much controversy in June.
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The total possible payout could cost $1 billion or more.
The "zero-tolerance policy" applied to families who illegally crossed the US-Mexico border to claim asylum. Since children could not be arrested alongside their parents, the families were separated, sometimes with no access to track and reunite them later on, government examinations revealed.
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Now, many families are released into the heart of the US and asked to appear in court later on. Some are deported under Title 42, the coronavirus public health policy.
Lawsuits claim that the separated children were kept in bad conditions, sometimes suffered from malnutrition or heat exhaustion, or were kept in cold rooms and offered little medical care. Lawyers argue that the children have endured long-lasting trauma from the anxiety of being without their parents.
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They seek a range of payouts, averaging $3.4 million per family, according to the WSJ.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Trump loyalist, said Tuesday he is "very, very concerned" about the payments declaring them to be a "slap in the face" with Americans themselves already trying to make ends meet as inflation raises the cost of living.
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