Movimiento Cosecha’s Statement in Response to Presidential Candidate Biden’s Comments on Apology for 3 Million Deportations

By:
Jul 13, 2019
2:45 PM

DOVER, NH — In response to continued public outrage of family separation, dozens of allies joined immigrant leaders in confronting former Vice President Biden at a Friday campaign event in order to make it clear that we have not forgotten the three million deportations that happened under his watch. Biden was confronted by Nelson, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala who spoke about his brother who was detained under Obama in 2016 and later deported. In May of this year, just two months ago, Nelson was detained and separated from his 3-year-old daughter.

This comes after the protest Cosecha held this past Wednesday (July 10), when impacted immigrant families with Cosecha stormed Biden’s campaign headquarters in Philadelphia to demand that he apologize for the three million deportations he was complicit to under the Obama administration. Cosecha unveiled their Dignity Plan, demanding that all presidential candidates, if elected, commit to use their executive power to halt all detentions and deportations, develop a family reunification program for those deported during the Trump and Obama administrations, and provide immediate legalization for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States of America.

Movimiento Cosecha released the following statement in response to Joe Biden’s comments:

“In response to our questioning, Biden said he would not apologize for those with felony charges, but let’s be clear that the Obama/Biden Administration had a choice, and they chose to reinforce policies designed to criminalize our community. Ramping up the use of felony charges to expedite deportations on mothers and fathers trying to reunite with their families.”

“While Biden spoke about a hypothetical apology, Nelson did not speak about a hypothetical family separation. A real apology would be a commitment to reunify the families you tore apart. We won’t accept empty words without action.”

“In his comments, Biden justified deportations. But we know that any and all detention and deportations are a manifestation of family separation. We will not forget that the Obama Administration promised to legalize the undocumented immigrant community but then deported 3 million family and community members. We will continue fighting with our resilient immigrant community to live a life where we do not live in fear or under the stress of being separated from our loved ones.”

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Movimiento Cosecha tweets from @CosechaMovement.