Vice-President Joe Biden told a crowd celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month that the GOP’s direction on immigration reform is of biblical proportions.
Speaking to a poolside reception at his residence Monday, Biden said he wouldn’t offer any “false hope” about Republican action on the issue, but hedged that it was possible the party would witness a parting of the clouds and the emergence of the light given the upcoming midterm elections.
“I can tell you, when this election [is] over in the lame duck session, they just may see the Lord. It is possible,” Biden said, according to a White House pool report. “But if they don’t they will see some lightning.”
Biden added an echo of the White House’s occasional tough talk about acting unilaterally, saying, “They will either act rationally, or we will act for them.”
The comments come just a couple of weeks after the administration undermined its own credibility on immigration reform, when the president broke his pledge to act by the end of the summer and delayed any executive action until after the elections.
That decision elicited backlash from the Hispanic community, with figures such as Jorge Ramos calling it the “triumph of partisan politics.”
Biden seemed to acknowledge as much at the reception.
“I know you’re all waiting and you’re frustrated,” he said.
