@ericbradner @CosechaMovement This does not tell the whole story. Here is the transcript of the moments prior to this exchange:
@ericbradner @CosechaMovement Q. Good evening, my name is Silvia, every day I live under the fear that ICE is going to separate my family. I have heard that you have defended Obama’s record of 3 million deportations that happened over the eight years he was in office. Because the deportations were so high
@ericbradner @CosechaMovement under the Obama administration, it is hard for me as an immigrant to trust you, and I want to know if you were to be president if you would stop deportations on day one through executive action.
@ericbradner @CosechaMovement Biden: No. I will not stop all deportations; I’ll prioritize deportations— only people who committed a felony or a serious crime, number one. Number two: to compare President Obama to this guy is outrageous.
@ericbradner @CosechaMovement He’s (Obama) the guy that came up with the DACA program, he’s the guy that came along and said that he would apply the law in response to a commitment from the Republicans that in fact they would move toward total immigration reform.
@ericbradner @CosechaMovement When that failed, and I’m not gonna talk about any disagreement that I may have had with him internally. But here’s the deal. We came along and he (Obama) then stopped family separations. ICE did not operate at your doorstep and worry about when your kid goes to school whether or
@ericbradner @CosechaMovement not you should be deported, separating families, we in fact sent the DACA program to millions of kids, by the way—not only Hispanic children, Hispanic Dreamers, but Asian-Pacific Dreamers. There’s a significant portion of them as well that are Dreamers.
@ericbradner @CosechaMovement Thirdly, the separation of families and putting kids in cages is brutal. It is absolutely inhumane. And that will completely stop. [applause] We also provided for— what the president asked me to do was to do one other thing. And that was the significant immigration coming from
@ericbradner @CosechaMovement Central America in the Northern Triangle. Why do people come? Do people come because they say boy it would be fun to leave everything I know? No, they come because they’re being abused, they don’t have jobs, because the cartels are dealing with them and abusing them.
@ericbradner @CosechaMovement What I did was I came up with a program that I got Republicans to vote for: for $750 million—the condition for, in those three countries where the most immigration was coming from, we would—if they reform their systems—in terms of schools, in terms of prisons, in terms of police
@ericbradner @CosechaMovement corruption, and all those issues, everything from street lighting in areas to access to electricity, all these issues, and making people pay their fair share in taxes, the very wealthy who were paying nothing, then we would in fact help fund the changes in their country.
@ericbradner @CosechaMovement Guess what. Immigration slowed up precipitously. If you notice, there is a net migration to Mexico now. (Biden checks with translator to make sure the woman understood his answer. Translator indicated that she did.) Okay, good.
@ericbradner @CosechaMovement All of this happened prior to the events in the above video. So if you’re going to be fair, at least report the whole event and not just the part that suits you!
