As usual, I didn’t stay up to watch the whole debate last night because I’m old and these things take place too late on Sunday night. Instead, I just went through some of the highlight reels this morning, which is far less taxing on your brain in my experience. By all accounts, Joe Biden did pretty well for himself in terms of holding on to his lead over Bernie Sanders. Of course, realistically, all Uncle Joe needed to do was to avoid letting his mind wander off in the middle of an answer and start talking about his time fighting alongside Corn Pop against the Germans at Pearl Harbor or mistaking Jake Tapper for his younger sister. From the sound of it, Biden managed to clear that very low bar and should be in good shape heading into the next round of primaries.
But there was one other danger lurking for Biden that he didn’t manage to avoid. All through the primary, he’s been forced further and further to the left in an effort to attract the younger, more socialist Democratic voters. But the deeper we get into this thing, the more people are paying attention and Joe’s going to have to move back toward the center to avoid scaring off the moderates and independents in the general election. Sadly, with Bernie Sanders standing next to him last night, ready to promise free everything for everyone and reeducation camps for people who make “too much money,” Joe had to keep promising an equally radical agenda.
That reality was perhaps most heavily on display when it came to the subject of illegal immigration and border security. Biden couldn’t afford to look less “compassionate” than Sanders or less hostile toward Immigration and Customs Enforcement with all of the liberals watching them. With that in mind, he dove fully off the left end of the debate pool, declaring that as soon as he’s sworn in, there will be an immediate, 100-day moratorium on all deportations. (Biden first brought this proposal up during the debate in Nevada.) And after that, no illegal aliens will be deported unless they commit a new felony inside the United States. One of the first to note this was Byron York.
Apparently Biden's position is that, if he is president, a person who enters the US illegally will never face deportation, no matter his criminal record in any foreign country, unless he is convicted of a felony committed in the US.
— Byron York (@ByronYork) March 16, 2020
Uncle Joe’s position continued to take a radical turn as he explained that he would encourage all police across the nation to refuse to ever cooperate with ICE. (Daily Caller)
Former Vice President Joe Biden made several pro-immigration proposals during Sunday night’s Democratic debate, including promising no deportations in his first 100 days and stating that police should refuse to cooperate with ICE authorities…
First, Biden promised to produce a bill “that requires access to citizenship” for illegal immigrants currently in the country.
“Number two, the first 100 days of my administration, no one will be deported at all,” he declared. “From that point on, the only deportations that will take place are commissions of felonies in the United States of America.”
There’s a lot to unpack here, but we should first note that debate moderator and Univision anchor Ilia Calderon did a fair job of pushing back on Biden, pointing out some inconsistencies in his positions on this issue and asking him to clarify these new promises. She first pointed out that this was a very different attitude than the one Biden displayed as Vice President when the Obama administration was setting deportation records right and left. All Joe could say to that was that he “took too long to get it right.”
After he set forth his plan to halt all deportations except for felons, Calderon asked him if that meant “only felons get deported and everyone else gets to stay?” Joe flatly responded with a “Yes” and didn’t even try to leave any wiggle room for himself.
In addition to all of that, Biden went one giant step further and insisted that he would produce a bill requiring “access to citizenship” for all illegal aliens currently in the country. In other words, blanket amnesty for all illegal aliens not having been found guilty of a felony.
Let’s be clear about the corner that Uncle Joe has painted himself into here. These aren’t “liberal” positions on immigration and border security. They aren’t “progressive” positions. These are radical, open-borders positions that would immediately put his administration at war with his own Department of Homeland Security. While Biden has never joined the other socialists in directly calling for the abolishment of ICE, this works out to the same thing. What is the purpose of having ICE detain illegal aliens if the non-felons are to be immediately released and given a lift to stand in line for a green card and eventual naturalization?
As others were quick to point out last night, Joe Biden has now moved past the concept of sanctuary cities and sanctuary states. He’s talking about a sanctuary nation. This position is wildly outside the mainstream as polling has consistently shown. Calling on the police to help support lawlessness may be a popular slogan among the wokest of the woke, but it’s not going to get you very far in the heartland.
That moment on the debate stage is probably going to come back to haunt Biden later on if he becomes the nominee. You can rest assured that Trump will dredge it up and beat him over the head with it on the debate stage. If Uncle Joe keeps up this mad dash into socialist madness, he might just take himself out of the 2020 election before he even gets out of the gate.
