"It is a moral failing and a national shame when a father and his baby daughter drown seeking our shores. When children are locked away in overcrowded detention centers and the government seeks to keep them there indefinitely. When our government argues in court against giving those children toothbrushes and soap. When President Trump uses family separation as a weapon against desperate mothers, fathers, and children seeking safety and a better life. When he threatens massive raids that would break up families who have been in this country for years and targets people at sensitive locations like hospitals and schools. When children die while in custody due to lack of adequate care.

Trump has waged an unrelenting assault on our values and our history as a nation of immigrants.

It's wrong, and it stops when Joe Biden is elected president."

These are the opening lines of the Biden campaign's immigration platform, and for fans of compassionate—or even just basically decent—immigration policies, they are a soothing balm for the soul.

Of the many things to take issue with over the past four years, the Trump administration's cruel immigration policies surely rank toward the top. There was no excuse for the zero tolerance family separation policy that tore children—babies, even—from their parents arms without even putting into place a plan to reunite them. There was no good reason to slash our refugee ceiling to historically low levels when the world is facing a historically large refugee crisis and when study after study shows that refugee resettlement is actually good for the country economically. There was no reason for Dreamers to fear being sent back to countries many of them don't even remember, when they have lived their lives as Americans and had no say in their parents' actions.