Joe Biden is supporting an absolute moratorium on deportations of anyone in the United States for his first 100 days in office if he wins the presidency — something his campaign had denied earlier on Saturday after immigrant advocates said they had been led to believe that was his new position.



"Vice President Biden is absolutely committed to a 100 day moratorium on any deportations of people already in the United States," the Biden campaign and the Latino Victory Fund said in a joint statement to BuzzFeed News on Saturday afternoon. "The campaign and Latino Victory Fund stand fully together in this and in the mission to support immigrant communities and center all the issues important to Latinos at the heart of this movement as we work to send Donald Trump and his unmitigated assault on our national values packing."



The statement is an explicit reversal of one from just hours before, when a Biden adviser told BuzzFeed News that characterizing recent comments from Biden as supporting a moratorium "is inaccurate."

The proposal is something progressive immigrant activists have pushed Biden and other presidential candidates on for months.

At a CNN town hall on Thursday, Biden said, "We have a right to protect the border. But the idea — and by the way, nobody, and some of you are going to get mad at me with this, but nobody is going to be deported in my first 100 days until we get through the point that we find out the only rationale for deportation will be whether or not, whether or not you've committed a felony while in the country.”



The Latino Victory Fund endorsed Biden days before the town hall, and on Friday night Mayra Macías, the organization’s executive director, tweeted that Biden in a meeting with the group had committed to a moratorium on deportations in his first 100 days.