Former Vice President and 2020 Democrat presidential primary candidate Joe Biden previously said all 11 to 22 million illegal aliens living across the United States are “already American citizens.”

In a 2014 speech to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C. then-Vice President Biden declared that all 11 to 22 million illegal aliens in the U.S. are one and the same to American citizens.

Biden said:

You know, the 11 million people living in the shadows, I believe they’re already American citizens. Teddy Roosevelt said it better, he said Americanism is not a question of birthplace or creed or a line of dissent. It’s a question of principles, idealism, and character. [Emphasis added] These people are just waiting, waiting for a chance to be able to contribute fully. And by that standard, 11 million undocumented aliens are already Americans. [Emphasis added]

Biden’s citation of Roosevelt’s “True Americanism” 1894 essay failed to mention that the former president was fiercely opposed to a multicultural American culture and politics, arguing that assimilation in immigration is vital to preserving national identity.

Roosevelt wrote:

Americanism is a question of spirit, conviction, and purpose, not of creed or birthplace. The politician who bids for the Irish or German vote, or the Irishman or German who votes as an Irishman or German, is despicable, for all citizens of this commonwealth should vote solely as Americans; but he is not a whit less despicable than the voter who votes against a good American, merely because that American happens to have been born in Ireland or Germany.

Biden enters the 2020 Democrat presidential primary with a voting record between 1989 and 2009 of routinely supporting increasing foreign competition against American workers by increasing legal immigration levels, supporting amnesty for all illegal aliens in the U.S., and supporting increasing the total number of foreign workers whom business is allowed to hire every year instead of American citizens.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.