Joe Biden: ‘Absolutely Bizarre’ to Suggest Limit on U.S. Capacity to Absorb Immigrants

Joe Biden Chinese restaurant (Joel Pollak/ Breitbart News)
Joel Pollak/ Breitbart News

LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Former Vice President Joe Biden campaigned inside a Chinese restaurant on Tuesday evening, telling supporters it was “bizarre” to suggest a limit on immigration to the U.S.

Biden promised to expand immigration to the U.S. if elected president.

“Folks, look — the idea that there’s some limitation on the capacity of anyone who — on the immigrants in this country is absolutely bizarre! It’s absolutely bizarre.”

Biden, speaking to a packed crowd inside the Harbor Palace Seafood Restaurant on the eve of the next Democratic debate, addressed members of the Asian-American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community, urging them to turn out the vote ahead of Saturday’s caucuses.

Last month, the AAPI Victory Fund super PAC endorsed Biden for president, citing his ability to defeat President Donald Trump and his experience working with immigrant communities from South Asia, East Asia and the Pacific generally.

Though the AAPI immigrant community is politically diverse, it has trended Democratic in recent years.

Last year, Breitbart News reported, another local AAPI organization in Las Vegas expressed opposition to President Trump’s proposed merit-based system for legal immigration.

On Tuesday, Biden promised, if elected, to allow family reunification visas.

“We should be able to increase, to three million people, the people who could come for family reunification. Period, period, period, period.”

He called the idea that the U.S. could not “reunite” more families “absolutely bizarre.”

Biden also reminded his audience that Latinos were not the only beneficiaries of President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which applied to those brought to the country illegally as children.

He said there were “thousands and thousands of AAPI ‘Dreamers'” who had benefited from DACA as well.

Afterwards, Biden greeted attendees, some of whom proceeded to the Chinatown Mall to cast early votes before the polling place there closed.

Biden hopes to finish in the top three in Nevada, and to win South Carolina on Feb. 29, to make the case that he is still a top contender for his party’s nomination. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) now leads national polls, as well as Nevada polls.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

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