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”.

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In a statement issued by her office, the first lady expressed empathy for affected families, saying the country should be governed “with a heart”.

“Mrs Trump hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform.

“She believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with a heart,” the first lady said in the statement by her Spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham.

Nearly 2,000 children were taken away from their parents in a six-week period ending in May under the new policy of President Donald Trump’s administration.

The first lady’s statement echoed the president’s words on Friday saying: “I hate the children being taken away”.

Trump, however, blamed the Democrats, adding: “The Democrats have to change their law – that’s their law”.

Laura Bush, wife of former President George W. Bush, has also launched an outspoken attack on the policy in a statement in the Washington Post.

The former first lady said: “This zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart.

“Our government should not be in the business of warehousing children in converted box stores or making plans to place them in tent cities in the desert.

“These images are eerily reminiscent of the Japanese American internment camps of World War Two, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history.”

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The department said in the statement that 163 Somali nationals had left for their home country on an airplane of local airliner Al-Buraq.

The department said the deportation was in cooperation with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

“This is the first direct flight to leave Tripoli’s M’etiga international airport to the Somali capital Mogadishu,” the department said.

In addition, the department said, 30 migrants from Bangladesh and 28 from Pakistan were sent to their countries of origin.

Libya has become a preferred point of departure for immigrants hoping to reach Europe after domestic conflicts erupted in the North African country in 2011.

The voluntary return program is carried out by the IOM in Libya to help illegal immigrants stranded in Libya return to their countries of origin.

Some 20,000 illegal immigrants returned home via the program in 2017.

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