Immigrant-advocacy groups are taking the Obama administration to task for recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement roundups of illegal immigrants, singling out comments Thursday by Vice President Joe Biden defending the raids for particular criticism.
Biden told House Democrats gathered in Baltimore for their annual retreat that of the 100 people arrested, mostly Latinos, only 67 have been deported.
The group United We Dream, which is pressing for comprehensive immigration reform, said Biden was “dispatched” to Baltimore to get Democrats angry about the raids “off President Obama’s back for terrorizing immigrant communities with raids and other indefensible tactics.”
The advocates are specifically upset about deportation of so-called “dreamers” — young people who were illegally brought to the U.S. as children who would have been eligible for citizenship under the DREAM Act that nearly passed Congress in 2010.
“In 2011, the president said he wasn’t deporting ‘dreamers’ but we proved he was,” United We Dream’s Cristina Jimenez said Friday. “Then he tried to convince America that there was nothing he could do … and then we made him stop doing it. This is a familiar pattern with the Obama administration — when faced with evidence of their reprehensible treatment of immigrant families, they say that abuses aren’t happening and hope that everyone just goes along with their lie. But we aren’t buying it, we are mobilizing to fight back and defend ourselves.”
A broad coalition of minority, immigrant, faith-based and progressive groups comprising more than 75 organizations said on Friday that they would hold a press conference outside the White House Tuesday and “deliver” a petition signed by more 120,000 people asking Obama to stop the raids.
