Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Thursday night falsely claimed the Obama administration "didn't lock people up in cages."
The former vice president participated in the third Democratic primary debate in Houston, Texas, where moderator Jorge Ramos asked him why Latinos should trust him based on the Obama administration's track record on 3 million deportations.
"What Latinos should look at is comparing this president to the president we have is outrageous," Biden said. "We didn't lock people in cages. We didn't separate families. We didn't do all of those things."
This claim was rated as "wrong," according to an Associated Press fact check.
The "cages" — chain-link enclosures inside border facilities where migrants have been temporarily housed, separated by sex and age — were built and used by the Obama administration. The Trump administration has been using the same facilities as the Obama administration.
Democrats routinely accuse Trump of using cages for children without acknowledging the same enclosures were employed when Biden was vice president.
The Obama administration also separated migrant children from families under certain limited circumstances, like when the child’s safety appeared at risk or when the parent had a serious criminal history.
CNN also said both of Biden's claims were "false." They said the Obama administration didn't systematically separate families, but stated they did separate families under "certain circumstances."