Dear Joe Biden: It Was Your Administration That Put Kids in Cage

It seems like only yesterday Joe Biden was claiming that he didn’t seek out Barack Obama’s endorsement for president because he wanted to win the nomination on his own merits, but ever since then he’s been finding some subtle and not-so-subtle ways to ride on Obama’s coattails, including using images of Obama on his website and social media.

Over the weekend, Joe Biden spoke at the Human Rights Campaign gala in Columbus, Ohio, during which he referred to Obamacare as “the Affordable Care Act of our administration,” meaning his and Barack Obama’s. He never misses an opportunity to assume co-ownership of the Obama administration’s accomplishments—at least those that are still politically viable in his party.

In the same speech that he referred to the Obama administration as “our administration,” he accused the Trump White House as being “literally a bully pulpit” and “implementing discriminatory policies like Muslim bans, turning away asylum seekers, putting children in cages.”

Of course what Biden doesn’t want the public to remember is that the seven countries identified in Trump’s executive order, dubbed the “Muslim ban” by his critics, were originally identified by the Obama-Biden administration over the risk of terrorism—yet no one freaked out when Obama and Biden implemented their “Muslim ban.”

Biden also doesn’t want the public to remember that it was the Obama-Biden administration that put immigrant children in cages. In fact, outrage over the policy was sparked in May 2018 by photos of immigrant children in cages that went viral. The images were from 2014, during Obama and Biden’s second term.

That was Obama-Biden policy. Obama and Biden put kids in cages. While they put kids in cages, Trump signed an executive order ending family separation.

Since Joe Biden is so anxious to assume co-ownership of administration policies while he was vice president, Joe Biden needs to be held accountable for locking immigrant children in cages, and then explaining why it took Donald Trump to put a stop to family separations. Come on, Joe, it’s time to own up to this policy. You can’t sniff your way out of this.

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Matt Margolis is the author of The Scandalous Presidency of Barack Obama and the bestselling The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. His new book, Trumping Obama: How President Trump Saved Us From Barack Obama’s Legacy, will be published in July 2019. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis