Julian Castro: "My plan would make sure that we put undocumented immigrants on a pathway to citizenship, that we do a 21st Century marshal plan with countries so we can get to the root of this challenge so people can find safety and opportunity at home instead of having to come to the United States. That's how we can be smarter, more effective and more humane when it comes to immigration policy".
At least three candidates were aligned as they all took aim at the US president over immigration policies.
"These children have not committed crimes and should not be treated like criminals", Kamala Harris said.
"There's not a single person on this stage if were president would ever separate a child from their parents at the border ... That is what this administration has done in the American people's name, they have turned our border into a symbol of hostility, the symbol of this country before Donald Trump was president was the statue of liberty. That should be the symbol of the United States of America", Michael Bennet said.
"No president before President Trump enforced the law in the way he has enforced it because he's using it as the crutch to lock up women and children, to separate mothers and babies, to put them behind bars. So I don't think we should have a law on the books that can be so misused. It should be a civil violation and we should make sure that we treat people humanely", Kirsten Gillibrand
Meanwhile, Julian Castro, who used to work alongside Joe Biden in the Obama-administration, came under fire from the former Vice President.
"I found that the secretary, we sat together in many meetings, I never heard him talk about any of this when he was the secretary", Biden said.
Castro responded: "It looks like one of us has learned from the lessons of the past and one of us hasn't".
Andrew Yang stressed: "My father immigrated here and generated over 65 US Patents for GE and IBM. That's the immigration story we need to be telling".
