Joe Biden: Barack Obama Administration Deporting 3 Million Immigrants ‘Was A Big Mistake’

The 2020 Nevada Democratic caucuses are scheduled to take place on February 22, but candidates have already begun pitching themselves to voters, holding rallies and giving interviews. Latinos, who make up almost 30 percent of Nevada’s population, are an important voting bloc in the state, and immigration is one of the defining issues.

In an interview with Univision, which will air Sunday, former Vice President Joe Biden discussed his own record on immigration. Per The Hill, Biden acknowledged that former President Barack Obama‘s administration had a hard-line stance on immigration, deporting a record number of undocumented immigrants.

“We took far too long to get it right,” Biden told anchor Jorge Ramos, saying that the fact that the Obama administration deported 3 million undocumented immigrants — many of them law-abiding workers — “was a big mistake.” According to Biden, the administration did not “get it right” until its second term.

“The point is there were too many,” he said, without disputing that Obama deported more immigrants than any president in history, including President Donald Trump.

“I saw the pain in the eyes of so many people who saw their families being deported. I know what it’s like to lose family members. It was painful.”

In 2012, Biden pointed out, the Obama administration put the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy — which allows immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children to receive protection from deportation — into place.

“It wasn’t until 2012 that we began to get it right with the DACA program and trying very much in 2014 to expand that and moving in the right direction,” he said.

As The Hill notes, the Obama administration’s decision to put DACA into place came after years of pressure from advocacy groups and immigrant rights organizations.

Biden also told Ramos that he would — if elected president — overturn Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy and introduce legislation legalizing millions of undocumented immigrants.

“I already have the bill,” he said.

According to the latest polling, Biden is not favored to win Nevada. According to a new poll conducted by WPA Intelligence, Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is the frontrunner in the Silver State, with a seven-point advantage over the former vice president, whose chances to win the nomination do not seem great, given that he underperformed in both Iowa and New Hampshire.

Sanders won the popular vote in Iowa and won the New Hampshire primary, consolidating the progressive vote. The moderate vote is split between Biden, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg.