Presidential Debate – During the last presidential debate, the sharp exchange of views was the most critical conversation between the candidates on immigration.
Joe Biden hammered President Donald Trump on Thursday night over his immigration plan, but was forced to defend his track record on the matter and largely evaded questions about the actions he took when he was vice president.
Trump publicized his administration’s findings on border security and repeatedly accused the Obama administration of building “cages” to hold migrants in one of its most aggressive lines of attack in the recent past. Presidential debate. But the president seemed to be wasting all the advantage he had gained during an uneasy response in which he characterized immigrants to the United States who present themselves at immigration court hearings as “low I.Q.”
The sharp exchange of views during the latest presidential debate was by far the most critical conversation between the candidates on immigration, Trump’s signature political issue, and the one he treated with laser attention as president.
Much of the discussion has centered on a lawsuit first obtained by NBC News that revealed that a federal judge appointed attorneys to identify separated families on the southern border. But have to locate the parents of 545 migrant children, and two-thirds of these. parents were deported to Central America without their children.
The Trump administration focused on separating migrant children from their parents at the border in 2017 before officially instituting a “zero-tolerance policy” in 2018 to deter families from coming to the frame. Almost 4,000 families have been separated in total.
“What happened?” Biden said, recounting how the children were torn from their parents’ arms. And now they can’t find more than 500 sets from those parents. And those children are alone, they have nowhere to go. Nowhere to go. It’s criminal.”
Trump replied that migrant children in the U.S. are well received and pointed out that the Obama administration has built “cages” to contain migrants. The Obama administration has built remand centers – including chain link fences – to accommodate migrants, including children.
But Biden turned the argument to Trump’s restrictive asylum policy, which has fundamentally reshaped the United States Asylum system and severely restricted who qualifies for protection in the U.S. Some guidelines make migrants ineligible for asylum if they have made their way to the U.S.
“This is the first president in the United States of America that said anybody seeking asylum has to do it in another country. That’s never happened before in America,” Biden said.
“They’re shaking in squalor on the other side of the river,” Biden said, referencing the so-called “Remain in Mexico” program promulgated by the Trump administration that forces migrants to wait, often for months on end, in Mexico. At the same time, their court cases in immigration matters are judged.
“We now have a stronger border than we’ve ever had. We’re over 400 miles from a brand new wall. You see the numbers. We let people in, but they have to come in legally,” Trump said. According to the Department of Homeland Security’s most recent data, some 371 miles of the new border wall have been completed so far.
He noted that his administration had put an end to the practice popularly known as ‘catch and release’ of releasing immigrants into the U.S. interior to await their court hearings.
“Catch and release is a disaster. And a murderer comes in, and a rapist comes in, a horrible person comes in. We would take their names, and we must release them in our country, ” Trump said.
Trump also said that only 1% of people show up for their lawsuits.
“Only the really – I hate to say this – but those with the lowest I.Q., they might come back and present,” Trump said.
The rate at which immigrants get to hearings varies depending on the type of proceedings, but the data show that immigrants generally present themselves to hearings. According to an analysis by the Migration Policy Institute, between 2008 and 2019, 83% of all immigrants placed in an expulsion procedure was the immigration court appearance rate.
Biden said immigration reform “took too long to get it right” but didn’t go into detail on his track record. He promised to send a bill to Congress within the first 100 days of his office to create a pathway to citizenship for 11 million immigrants living illegally in the country.
The Trump administration tried to end the program, but the Supreme Court reprimanded its efforts.
“They’ve been here, many of them are model citizens, over 20,000 of them are first responders out there taking care of people during this crisis,” Biden said of DACA recipients. “We owe them.”
