Aug. 4 (UPI) — Former Vice President Joe Biden unveiled a plan to help the U.S. Latinx community on Tuesday, calling for more access to affordable healthcare and overhauling the “broken” immigration system.
President Donald Trump’s campaign also ramped up its efforts to appeal to Latinx voters.In a statement accompanying the plan, Biden’s Democratic campaign for president praised the Latinx community as “a core part of the American story and their contributions are evident in every part of society,” calling for an immigration policy treating migrants “with dignity and respect.”
As president, Biden would “ensure everyone is treated with dignity — no matter their race, gender, sexual orientation, religion or disability. Everyone means everyone,” the statement said.
The plan calls for affordable healthcare as a human right; raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour; narrowing the gap between rich and poor public school districts through more funding; and providing two years of community college without debt.
Biden’s immigration reforms envision giving “some 11 million undocumented immigrants a road map to citizenship” and guaranteeing that “those seeking refuge in the United States are treated with dignity and get the fair hearing they’re legally entitled to receive.”
The policy also calls for “common sense” gun control laws, fighting the effects of climate change on communities of color and rooting out racial, gender and income-based disparities in the U.S. justice system.
Trump’s Republican campaign, meanwhile, began running a digital campaign ad equating “progressive” Democrats with socialist Latin American dictators such as Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.
In a statement accompanying the ad’s release, the Trump campaign called Biden’s policies “anti-Hispanic” and warned he would reinstate “a failed U.S.-Cuba policy that enables the Castro regime to prop up the dictatorship in Venezuela and Marxist guerrillas that terrorize Latinos in Colombia and other countries.”
Election Day is Nov. 3.
