Former Vice President Joe Biden argued the Obama administration’s containment of unaccompanied minors at detention centers along the southern border cannot be compared to the current administration’s hard-line immigration policies.
The discussion about immigration took place Friday when Univision anchor Jorge Ramos interviewed the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.
"At the debate in Houston, you said that during the Obama administration and I quote, ‘We didn't lock people in cages,' but you actually did — not in the same numbers as the Trump administration, but you did,” Ramos told Biden on his Real America show.
“We found a picture of an 8-year-old boy from Honduras. ... I spoke with the photographer,” Ramos added, noting the photo was from a detention center in McAllen, Texas, in 2014.
“Yes. And what happened was, all the unaccompanied children coming across the border, we tried to get them out. We kept them safe and get them out of the detention centers,” Biden replied. “Essentially that center, that were run by Homeland Security and get them into communities as quickly as we can.”
Ramos pressed further, telling the former vice president, “Many people would say there were cages.”
“Well, look, you know, you're not telling the truth here about the comparison of the two things,” Biden pushed back.
“I'm saying that the numbers in your administration were not the same as the ones we're seeing right now with the Trump administration,” Ramos responded.
“Well, beyond that, but look how quickly we got them out and got them back to families. Look how we didn't engage and we sought the relatives here," Biden said, adding: “We sought to get them into safe communities. We sought to get them out of the control of Homeland Security to get them safe. But they came unaccompanied, unaccompanied.”
The Obama administration released unaccompanied minors who came through border detention centers to guardians inside the United States.
By late 2015, a Homeland Security Department whistleblower contacted Congress over the program and alleged thousands of children were placed in homes with guardians with criminal histories.
The whistleblower, former Immigration and Customs Enforcement supervisor Jason Piccolo, wrote in the Washington Examiner: “There were 29,000 sponsors on the massive spreadsheet; 3,669 of the sponsors were convicted of crimes. The crimes ranged, among other things; from re-entry after deportation (a felony offense) to assault to actual sex crimes.”
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