In response to Vega, he echoed a distortion often made by his Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and said that Trump had dumped children into the Mexican desert. Except Biden made the charge even more lurid by alleging that Trump had let children starve to death.

This is a disgraceful and stupid charge. The Trump administration either flew back migrants to their home countries directly or handed them over to Mexican authorities to do the same. No one was pushed into the desert.

Also, in response to Vega, he said that the nine-year-old boy should be returned to his mother in Honduras. But that was precisely the Trump policy that Biden overturned and now falsely portrays as inhumane. Under Biden’s policy, that nine-year-old is likely in an HHS detention facility and will not be returned home, instead placed with the nearest relative that can be found in the United States.