Catholic leaders, both domestic and international, have repeatedly criticized the family separation policy.
At the end of June 2018, the court ordered that the children be reunited with their families.
The president appeared to deflect the question, saying first that "Children are brought here by coyotes and lots of bad people, cartels, and they're brought here and it's easy to use them to get into our country."
Trump said that he was "working" on a plan to reunite these children with their families, but said that this was difficult as "a lot of these kids come up without the parents" via a cartel or coyote.
A "coyote" is a slang term for a person paid to smuggle people into the United States.
Biden objected to these claims, saying that "these 500 plus kids came with parents" and were separated from them at the border. He also rejected the idea that coyotes were responsible for bringing children across the border, saying that "their parents were with them."
Biden and Trump sparred on the topic of the now-infamous "cages" that temporarily housed children who were separated from their parents at the border.
Trump noted that the "cages" were built during the Obama administration,during which time President Obama was referred to as the "deporter-in-chief" for the record-high number of deportations during his time in office.
Biden countered that the policy of separating families made a "laughingstock" of the country, and said the failure to achieve immigration reform during his vice presidency was "a mistake" and that he would create a pathway to citizenship for "over 11 million undocumented people" within the first 100 days of his presidency.
During exchanges on healthcare, Trump credited himself with "terminating" the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act, which he called "the worst part of Obamacare."
"Now [the ACA] is in court, because Obamacare is no good," said Trump. "No matter how well you run it, it's no good. What we'd like to do is terminate it."
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The president said that if Obamacare were "terminated," he would "come up with a brand new beautiful healthcare" policy that would continue to protect people with pre-existing conditions.
Biden said that, if elected, he would "pass Obamacare with a public option." He referred to this as "Bidencare." This public option would cover people who qualify for Medicaid but "do not have the wherewithal...to get Medicaid."
Biden said that he would not eliminate private insurance.
Christine Rousselle is a former DC Correspondent for Catholic News Agency. Prior to working at CNA, she was the managing web editor of Townhall.com; she has a BA in political science from Providence College.