President Joe Biden recommitted on Tuesday that he wants to pass an amnesty for 11 to 22 million illegal aliens living in the United States even as more than 17 million Americans remain jobless.
During a CNN town hall event with Anderson Cooper in Wisconsin, Biden said it is “essential” that any piece of legislation regarding immigration must include an amnesty for nearly all illegal aliens in the U.S.
The exchange went as follows:
COOPER: Just to be clear though … you do want a pathway to citizenship for roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants and that would be essential in any bill for you?
BIDEN: Well, yes. But, by the way, if you came along and said to me, “In the meantime we can work out a system whereby we’re going to” … for example, we used to allow refugees, 125,000 refugees into the United States on a yearly basis. It was as high as 250,000. Trump cut it 5,000.
Come with me … into Sierra Leone. Come with me into parts of Lebanon. Come with me around the world and see people piled up in camps, kids dying, no way out, refugees fleeing from persecution. We, the United States, used to do our part. We were part of that … “send me your huddled masses.”
If you had a refugee bill by itself, I’m not suggesting that, but … there are things I would deal by itself but not at the expense of saying I’m never going to do the other. There is a reasonable path to citizenship.
This week, Biden is expected to roll out his amnesty plan with elected Democrats. Simultaneously, as a result of economic lockdowns spurred by the Chinese coronavirus crisis, about 17.1 million Americans are out of work but all of whom want full-time jobs.
In his previously proposed amnesty plan, out late last month, Biden seeks to immediately provide green cards to millions of illegal aliens considered farmworkers, enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) beneficiaries.
The amnesty would provide all other illegal aliens with a fast-track to green cards and citizenship while driving up legal immigration by providing more visas to programs like the Diversity Visa Lottery and exempting family members of certain visa holders from current caps.
Already, the U.S. provides green cards to 1.2 million legal immigrants and 1.4 million temporary visas to foreign nationals every year. These arrivals are in addition to the hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens who turn up at the U.S.-Mexico border and are either released into the interior of the country or successfully cross without being detected by federal immigration officials.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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