Protesters slam Joe Biden’s record on immigration as they interrupt the Democratic debate

Embarrassment for Biden as protesters interrupt his closing remarks to call him out over his ‘deportation of three million people’ and scream ‘no kids in cages’

  • Protesters from RAICES Action, an immigrant rights group, heckled Biden
  • They accused him of deporting three million people while he was vice president
  • The protesters were escorted away by security at the Paris Theater in Las Vegas

Joe Biden was heckled by protesters chanting ‘no kids in cages’ during the Democratic debate as they slammed the former vice president’s record on immigration.

Protesters from RAICES Action, a prominent immigrant rights group, interrupted Biden’s closing remarks near the end of Wednesday’s two-hour televised debate at the Paris Theater in Las Vegas.

The group’s advocacy chief Erika Andiola and its communications manager Lucia Allain later admitted it was them that heckled Biden.

They leapt up from seats near the back of the theater and chanted ‘No kids in cages!’ and ‘Don’t look away!’ as they marched down an aisle towards the stage.

Joe Biden (pictured with his arm raised) was slammed for his record on deporting migrants 

RAICES advocacy chief Erika Andiola (left) and its communications manager Lucia Allain interrupted Joe Biden's closing remarks at the Democratic debate. They are pictured here at the 2019 Glamour Women Of The Year Awards in New York where the group received an award

RAICES advocacy chief Erika Andiola (left) and its communications manager Lucia Allain interrupted Joe Biden’s closing remarks at the Democratic debate. They are pictured here at the 2019 Glamour Women Of The Year Awards in New York where the group received an award

The protesters also yelled, ‘You deported 3 million people!’ in reference to the record-high deportations that occurred during Biden’s time as vice president in Barack Obama’s administration.

The protest group have called Obama the ‘deporter in chief’ while he was President. 

The protest was led by the group RAICES Action, according to the group’s Twitter account where they announced: ‘BREAKING: We are interrupting @JoeBiden at the #DemDebate chanting #DontLookAway and #NoKidsInCages. 

The protesters leapt up from seats near the back of the theater and chanted 'No kids in cages!' and 'Don't look away!' as they marched down an aisle towards the stage

The protesters leapt up from seats near the back of the theater and chanted ‘No kids in cages!’ and ‘Don’t look away!’ as they marched down an aisle towards the stage

The protesters announced their action against Joe Biden at the debate on Twitter

The protesters announced their action against Joe Biden at the debate on Twitter 

‘We need a Democratic candidate to adopt the #MigrantJusticePlatform and commit themselves to improve the lives of migrants and refugees!’

RAICES advocacy chief Erika Andiola and its communications manager Lucia Allain later took credit for the protest in a video on Twitter.

Andiola wrote: ‘@LuciaAllain1 and I disrupted the #DemDebate tonight, calling out the 3 million deportations of immigrants under the Obama administration. Here is why.’

In the video she says she’s ‘not sorry’ and slams the democrats for having ‘absolutely no questions about immigration’ during their debates.

She says: ‘We deserve a conversation about how our lives are going to look like if any of those people get elected.’

Biden and the other candidates waited patiently and the audience booed as security led the protesters out of the building after their short outburst. 

Videos of the protest circulated on Twitter but the protesters’ chants were hard to hear on most footage. 

One Twitter user commented: ‘Dear hecklers, heckling does not work well when no one can understand you.’

Another praised them for waiting until the end of the debate, saying: ‘Well, I do applaud the hecklers…they had an insane amount of patience to wait until the very end of a 2 hour slugfest.’ 

The protesters interrupted former vice president Joe Biden's closing remarks at the debate

The protesters interrupted former vice president Joe Biden’s closing remarks at the debate

Protesters from RAICES Action, a prominent immigrant rights group, interrupted Biden's closing remarks near the end of Wednesday's two-hour televised debate at the Paris Theater in Las Vegas

Protesters from RAICES Action, a prominent immigrant rights group, interrupted Biden’s closing remarks near the end of Wednesday’s two-hour televised debate at the Paris Theater in Las Vegas

Democratic presidential hopefuls Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg (L) and Former Vice President Joe Biden (R) speak during a break in the ninth Democratic primary debate of the 2020 presidential campaign season co-hosted by NBC News

Democratic presidential hopefuls Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg (L) and Former Vice President Joe Biden (R) speak during a break in the ninth Democratic primary debate of the 2020 presidential campaign season co-hosted by NBC News

RAICES – which stands for Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services – supports the Migrant Justice Platform, an immigration reform proposal agreed upon by a number of nonprofits. The platform includes a pledge to ‘to halt all deportations.’

It’s not the first time that Biden has been interrupted by protesters during the Democratic debates. 

In September, four beneficiaries of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the program giving legal protections for young unauthorized immigrants, interrupted his closing remarks with chants of ‘We are DACA recipients! Our lives are at risk!’ 

RAICES was the group responsible for exhibitions of children covered in mylar blankets in chain-link cages throughout Des Moines ahead of the Iowa caucuses, including at caucus sites and the city hall. 

Each installation played a real recording of a child who was kept in detention.

‘The horrors at our border and throughout our immigration system are too often ignored by the public and politicians,’ Erika Andiola, chief advocacy officer at RAICES, said in a statement before the Iowa caucuses.

‘We’re asking people in Iowa and across the country: Don’t look away from the terrors enacted in your name. This anti-immigrant crackdown has to end.’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk