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Joe Biden: Obama Wouldn't Be President If Today's Immigration Laws Existed In Past

Joe Biden: Obama Wouldn't Be President If Today's Immigration Laws Existed In Past
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Senior Politics Reporter, HuffPost

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WASHINGTON -- Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday that if today's tough immigration laws were in place back when President Barack Obama's relatives came to the United States from Ireland, they wouldn't have been let in and Obama would never have been president.

During remarks at the Hispanic National Prayer Breakfast, Biden praised the Senate for moving forward with comprehensive immigration reform legislation and highlighted that both he and Obama have roots in Ireland. He said his great-great-grandfather emigrated from Ireland in 1850, worked for a year in the United States as a shoemaker and then sent for his family. Meanwhile, Biden continued, Obama's great-great-great-grandfather left the same county in Ireland within a month of Biden's relative.

“Isn’t that amazing?” Biden asked. “Barack Obama and I are now the president and vice president of the United States of America. If we applied the same standards that we are applying today, it wouldn’t have happened.”

The vice president also criticized Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) for sponsoring a measure that would effectively demand that the government deport young, undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children -- a group better known as Dreamers. The House passed King's amendment to the Department of Homeland Security spending bill mostly along party lines. It has no chance of moving in the Senate or being signed into law.

King is a "decent and honorable man," Biden told the crowd, but what he has "failed to understand" is that Dreamers are "our children." His comments drew loud applause in response.

Biden acknowledged that most of those at the event were Republicans, but said he's okay with that and encouraged them to keep pushing for immigration reform.

"I love you anyway," he said to laughs. "I pray for you."

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Before You Go

11 Ways Immigration Reform Helps The Economy
Reform Would Help Curb The Deficit(01 of11)
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Immigration reform would reduce the federal deficit by $2.5 trillion over the next 10 years, according to an April analysis by the American Action Forum, a conservative think tank. (credit:Getty Images)
Expelling Immigrants Is Expensive(02 of11)
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Expelling the approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants currently in the United States would cost $2.6 trillion over the next 10 years, according to CNBC. That's because it costs the government more than $8,000 to deport each person. (credit:Getty Images)
Reform Would Help Fix The Social Security Problem(03 of11)
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Immigration reform would help bolster Social Security because more legal workers would mean more people contributing payroll taxes to its trust fund, according to an analysis from the Social Security administration. Undocumented workers already contribute $15 billion per year to Social Security. (credit:AP)
Immigrants Start Successful Businesses(04 of11)
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More than a quarter of technology and engineering firms started between 1995 and 2005 had a foreign-born owner, according to the Washington Post. One of the founders of Yahoo!, Jerry Yang, is an immigrant from Taiwan. (credit:AP)
Reform Would Save $410 Billion Over The Next 10 Years(05 of11)
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The immigration reform bill proposed by the "gang of eight" senators would save $410 billion over the next decade, according to an analysis from Gordon Gray, the director of fiscal policy at the American Action Forum, a conservative think tank. The savings would come largely from a boost in GDP resulting from undocumented immigrants gaining citizenship and in turn likely making more money. (credit:AP)
High-Tech Companies Say Reform Would Boost Their Bottom Line(06 of11)
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Companies like Microsoft and Google have said that immigration reform would help them by allowing for more H1B visas, a special kind of visa geared toward highly-skilled immigrants. The tech giants say they can't find enough qualified people in the U.S. to fill their staffing needs. (credit:AP)
Reform Would Boost The Wages Of Native-Born Workers(07 of11)
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U.S.-born workers see between a 0.1 and 0.6 percent boost in wages on average with an increase in immigration, according to a January report from the Hamilton Project, an economic policy initiative of the nonpartisan Brookings Institution. That's because immigrant workers bring skills with them that complement those of native-born workers, leading to new jobs. (credit:AP)
Immigrants Are Entrepreneurial (08 of11)
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Immigrants are more than twice as likely than native-born Americans to start new businesses, according to a White House report on immigration reform. (credit:AP)
Reform Would Boost GDP By More Than $1 Trillion Over 10 Years(09 of11)
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Immigration reform would boost GDP by $1.5 trillion -- or about 1 percent -- over 10 years, according to an estimate from UCLA professor Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda cited by CNBC. (credit:AP)
Immigrants Create Jobs(10 of11)
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Businesses owned by immigrants created 4.7 million jobs in the U.S. in 2007, according to a White House report on immigration reform. (credit:AP)
Reform Would Bring In More Money Than It Costs In Benefits(11 of11)
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Though many critics of immigration reform argue against the cost of providing increased public benefits, analysts say higher spending is not a likely consequence. A Congressional Budget Analysis of George W. Bush's 2007 immigration reform proposal found that it would cost the government $23 billion in more public services, but bring in $48 billion in revenue, according to the Washington Post. (credit:Getty Images)
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