Biden on Univision: Deporting 3 million ‘was a big mistake’ – By J. Edward Moreno (The Hill) / Feb 15 2020
Former Vice President Joe Biden said the fact that the Obama administration deported 3 million undocumented immigrants, many of whom had no criminal records, “was a big mistake.”
“We took far too long to get it right,” the Democratic presidential candidate said in a Friday interview with Univision’s Jorge Ramos in Henderson, Nevada.
Biden said the administration did not begin to “get it right” with regard to immigration until after its first term. The former vice president also did dispute that the administration deported more people than any administration before them as well as the Trump administration, though that fact has been widely reported on since he and Obama left office.
“The point is there were too many,” he conceded. “I saw the pain in the eyes of so many people who saw their families being deported. I know what it’s like to lose family members. It was painful.”
Biden pivoted to touting the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy, which the Obama administration put into place in 2012 after years of extreme pressure from immigrant rights groups.
DACA allows qualifying young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children to apply for two-year work permits and receive protection from deportation.
Continue to article: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/483242-biden-on-univision-deporting-3-million-was-a-big-mistake
