President Joe Biden insisted Tuesday that he’s not “playing politics” with immigration policy, at the same event where he ripped into former President Donald Trump for promising to put illegal immigrants in detention camps.
At an East Room event, Biden rolled out a new policy that would allow roughly 500,000 undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens a pathway to citizenship if they’ve lived in the country for at least 10 years.
Biden suggested the election year move was happening this summer to prevent some of the deportations that Trump has pledged should he be victorious in the fall.
“When he was president he separated families and children at the border,” Biden recalled. “And now he’s proposing to rip spouses and children from their families and homes and communities and put them in detention camps.”
The miffed Democrat continued: “He’s actually saying these things. It’s hard to believe it’s being said. He’s actually saying these things out loud.”
“It’s outrageous,” Biden uttered.
“Folks, I’m not interested in playing politics with the border or immigration I’m interested in fixing it,” the Democrat added.
Tuesday’s announcement came after earlier this month Biden made a move to shut down U.S.-Mexico border crossings – by barring most migrants from being able to claim asylum if they came into the U.S. that way.
That policy was more in-line with what Trump has pitched.
Since then, Trump has called it “bulls***,” as much of the Republican’s campaign has been based on claiming that Biden has does nothing to secure the U.S.-Mexico border.
