In SC stop, Biden talks about race relations, won’t commit to ending deportations
In what was a mostly warm welcome at a town hall, former Vice President Joe Biden fielded some comments from protesters who called on him to state whether he would support an end to immigrant deportations.
Biden on Thursday held a town hall at Lander University in Greenwood, a day after a shaky debate performance that his critics have used to fuel narratives he’s not unfit to be president.
Ahead of the town hall, the Republican Party took a swing at Biden, who remains ahead of his competitors in Palmetto State polls.
“Joe Biden has a few things to discuss tonight, from the corruption surrounding his son’s business dealings, to his latest disastrous debate performance,” Republican National Committee spokesman Joe Jackson said, pushing a narrative trumpeted by President Donald Trump and his allies who have been calling for investigations into Biden and his son’s business ties.
“One thing is clear, Biden’s campaign is (unraveling),” Jackson said.
Speaking for more than an hour, Biden fielded questions from the crowd about how he would help rural America, how he would help improve race relations and how he would work to help end cancer. But a question about immigrants living in fear of Immigration and Customs Enforcement coming to deport them led to the most drama.
At one point, demonstrators started chanting, “Not one more deportation!” In response, Biden wouldn’t commit to saying he would end deportations
“If someone commits murder, should they not be deported?” Biden asked one of the demonstrators as he interacted with him next to the podium in the middle of the gym.
“I will not stop deportations if you commit a crime that’s a felony,” Biden said.
Biden did assure the audience, however, that there would be no more family separation, a controversial border policy under President Donald Trump, if he were elected.
Helping the Hispanic and Latino communities was one issue of concern for another attendee of the town hall.
Yessica Ramirez, 20, and a junior studying visual arts education at Lander University, from Columbia, said she is still shopping around for a candidate.
“I would want to see first what he wants to do for the Hispanic community, how it’s going to be different from the president we currently have,” Ramirez said.
Biden holds a lead in the polls in South Carolina, and often touts his support among black voters. The South Carolina primary is often a bellwether of black support as the first true test for candidates with the key Democratic voting bloc before contests open up across the South.
The crowd was a mixture of younger college students who said they were still learning about candidates in the Democratic primary field, and older voters who said they were committed Biden supporters and weren’t fans of some of the more progressive values being pushed by the likes of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, of Vermont.
Questions about college debt and wage stagnation drove some of the students to hear Biden out.
Lander senior Lauren Frazier, 26, an accounting student from Honea Path, still is working on picking a candidate.
“I would love to see minimum wage go up,” Frazier said. “The minimum wage has been sitting at where it’s at now for a long long time. I figure the Democratic Party would be able to make it happen, make it change.”
Tyler Kowalski, 25, of Cross Hill, a staff member at Lander and an undecided Democratic voter, came to hear Biden’s viewpoints and whether he could relate to younger people.
“My biggest concern, as someone who works in higher education, and just someone who recently finished their higher education, is the student debt crisis and how our presidential nominee will deal with higher education moving forward, particularly as it pertains to funding and giving people access to community or technical colleges or four-year state university on the government’s dime,” Kowalski said. “Right now, I think students are a big profit center when they really shouldn’t be.”
Shemar Carr, 19, a freshman from Conway studying criminology at Lander, also hasn’t decided on a candidate.
“I want to see someone who is willing to work with the people, isn’t afraid to talk to average citizens,” said Carr, who comes from a working class family. “Mainly we get looked over.”
Meanwhile, some in the audience just came to hear their top candidate speak.
Clarence Reid, of Calhoun Falls, was one of the Biden supporters in the crowd. The 68-year-old veteran said he doesn’t have an alternate candidate if Biden falters in the primaries.
“He already been in there, and he knows the rules and regulation. We’ve got Trump in there he thinks you can do anything he wants to do,” Reid said.
Cheryl Ware, 54, of Greenwood, and her husband, Kenneth Ware, 49, who are both teamsters said they plan to stick with Biden no matter what.
“I haven’t really considered the other candidates because as soon as someone says Medicare for All, I turn off from listening,” Cheryl Ware said. “I like that he was there with Obama. I understand his position on insurance, he kind of wants to fix Obamacare.”
Cheryl Ware said she understands Biden’s history of working with segregationists.
“I think that, to me, it doesn’t concern me. I understand his history, I understand his positions. Everyone gets caught up with what he did to black people,” Ware said. “You have to have good negotiating skills, and I think what someone shows you in a snippet, in a debate, when you’re under fire, doesn’t really show you your whole resume. I think the work he’s put in in the past that is his resume.”
During the town hall, Biden spoke about race relations, discussing the white supremacists demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia, and how Trump said there were good people on both sides. He also touched on the 2015 shooting in Charleston at a church where nine black parishioners were killed including pastor and state senator Clementa Pinckney.
“Hate only hides under the rocks, and if you give it any oxygen, it comes out,” Biden said.
This story was originally published November 21, 2019 at 10:38 PM with the headline "In SC stop, Biden talks about race relations, won’t commit to ending deportations."
