Final U.S. presidential debate: Biden promises citizenship for 11m undocumented immigrants

Former U.S. Vice President, Joe Biden, has promised a pathway to citizenship for no fewer than 11 million undocumented immigrants if elected president on Nov. 3.

Biden, the Democratic Party candidate, made the promise at his last debate with his Republican challenger and incumbent President Donald Trump, on Thursday night.

“Within 100 days I am going to send to the U.S. Congress a pathway to citizenship for over 11 million undocumented people and all of those so-called Dreamers.

“They are going to be immediately certified again to be able to stay in this country and put on the path to citizenship.

“The idea that they are being sent home by this guy [Trump], and they want to do that, is that they are going to a country they have never seen before,” he said.

Noting the contributions of undocumented immigrants to the development of America, Biden said the country owed them.

According to him, no fewer than 20,000 of them are serving as first responders during the COVID-19 crisis, saving lives.

Responding, Trump said Biden had eight years as Vice President to do what he promised but failed, and rather built “cages“ to keep children in.

The Trump administration has been widely criticised for its policy of forcefully separating children from their undocumented immigrant parents, especially at the U.S. border with Mexico.

No fewer than 4,000 kids were separated and kept in detention facilities under the policy in late 2017.

Although, Trump has since reversed the zero-tolerance policy, the parents of 500 of those children cannot be located.

Asked how he planned to reunite the affected families, the president dodged the question and tried to turn the conversation to detention facilities.

He said the children were brought to the U.S. by bad people who used them to get into the country.

He argued that the “cages” in which the children were kept were built by the administration of former President Barack Obama under which Biden served as Vice President.

Biden fired back, noting that the children detained by Trump came over with their parents and that the policy was making the U.S. a “laughing stock”.