DES MOINES, Iowa — Joe Biden called for the United States to increase the number of immigrants and refugees from its current acceptance rate.
During a campaign stop hosted by the Asian & Latino Coalition PAC Thursday night, the former vice president pointed to nations with present conflicts that the U.S. should be accepting refugees from.
“We should change the priorities in terms of whether or not who is able to get in line. We should be uniting family. We should be uniting them. We should also be looking at the whole idea of what’s going on in terms of Diaspora that’s occurring on across the world,” Biden proposed, noting the Trump White House refugee admission policy difference since he left the White House.
“Four million people are fleeing Venezuela. What do we do? We’re not allowing temporary status at all like we did in Haiti,” he said.
The Trump administration has already cut refugee admissions by one third this year to 30,000.
“Let me put it another way. We could afford to take in a heartbeat another two million. The idea that a country of 330 million cannot afford people, who are in desperate need and who are justifiably weak, and fleeing depression is absolutely bizarre,” Biden said.
“I would also move to increase the number of immigrants able to come but also to deal with all those migrants,” he added.
Like the present administration, President Barack Obama faced a surge of migrants from Central America, causing a humanitarian crisis on the southern border in 2014.
Both Obama and Biden called on Congress to take legislative action to deal with the over 60,000 unaccompanied minors who arrived at the border from the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.
