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Saturday, 03/05/2016 2:37:10 AM

Saturday, March 05, 2016 2:37:10 AM

Why Immigration Is The Hole In Bernie Sanders’ Progressive Agenda

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks at a campaign rally in Portland, Maine.

by Kira Lerner
Jul 30, 2015 2:34 pm

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders outlined his immigration reform plan Thursday, saying he would support comprehensive immigration reform and go further than President Barack Obama to protect undocumented immigrants already in the United States. But when it comes to allowing new immigrants into the country, Sanders reiterated his position that opening the border would hurt employment and wages.

“I see two issues. I see the absolute need to provide legal status and protection to the undocumented people who are in this country now — some 11 million people,” the independent senator from Vermont said during a Q&A with the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Thursday.

“But here’s where I do have concerns,” he continued. “There is a reason why Wall Street and all of corporate America likes immigration reform, and it is not, in my view, that they’re staying up nights worrying about undocumented workers in this country. What I think they are interested in is seeing a process by which we can bring low-wage labor of all levels into this country to depress wages for Americans, and I strongly disagree with that.”

Sanders’ position on immigration has been called “complicated [ http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/bernie-sanders-and-immigration-its-complicated-119190.html ]” and he has been criticized by immigration activists [ http://blog.fwd.us/bernie-sanders-immigration ] for supporting the idea that immigrants coming to the U.S. are taking jobs and hurting the economy, a theory that has been proven incorrect [ https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/07/12/ten-ways-immigrants-help-build-and-strengthen-our-economy ]. Both of his leading Democratic challengers, Hillary Clinton and Martin O’Malley, have recognized that new immigrants coming to the country actually boost the economy. But Sanders continues to align himself more closely with Democratic positions of the past.

“I frankly do not believe that we should be bringing in significant numbers of unskilled to workers to compete with [unemployed] kids,” Sanders said. “I want to see these kids get jobs.”

Studies have shown that immigrants actually create jobs [ https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/news/2013/08/29/73203/immigration-helps-american-workers-wages-and-job-opportunities/ ] for American workers. Researchers recently found [ http://www.nber.org/papers/w21123 ] that each new immigrant has produced about 1.2 new jobs in the U.S., most of which have gone to native-born workers. And according to the Atlantic [ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/05/actually-immigration-can-create-jobs/391997/ ], an influx in immigration can cause non-tradable professions — jobs like hospitality and construction that cannot be outsourced — to see a wage increase because the demand for goods and services grows with the expanding population.

But Sanders fails to see it that way, pointing on Thursday to the 36 percent unemployment rate for Hispanic young people. “You bring a lot of unskilled workers into this country, what do you think happens to that 36 percent?”

Sanders’ poor track record on immigration goes back further than just his presidential campaign. In 2007, he voted against a bipartisan immigration reform bill sponsored by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA). At the progressive Netroots Nation conference earlier this month, Sanders said [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHhrvKlZyS4 (next below; with comments; the referenced question and answer begin at c. the 12:55 mark)]

the reform bill would have allowed for low wage workers to enter the country who would “be competing against kids in this country who desperately need jobs.”

But Sanders did vote for the 2013 immigration reform bill, which also included guest worker programs and contained most of the same measures [ http://journalism.berkeley.edu/conf/2013/immigration/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Full_Reading_042413.pdf ] as the 2007 bill that he opposed.

“There’s a very significant difference in scope of what the recent bill does compared to what that bill does,” Bernie said Thursday. “My concern about the bill that I voted against has to do with…that there was too much emphases on bringing low-wage workers into this country. What I want to see and what is better about the recent bill is that number one, there is a path towards citizenship which is absolutely essential. And second of all, that I was able to get a fairly significant amount of money into providing jobs for young people in this country.”

At the USHCC event, Sanders also highlighted the more progressive parts [ http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/bernie-sanders-tells-latinos-he-bacsk-immigration-reform-naleo-n378691 ] of his immigration plan, which include comprehensive reform and a path toward citizenship for the roughly 11 million undocumented Americans.

“Economically and morally, it is unacceptable that we have millions of workers who are living in the shadows,” he said. “Some of my Republican colleagues apparently think that the solution is I guess in the middle of the night to round up everybody and throw them out of the country. I think that anybody thinking those kinds of ideas is ugly beyond belief.”

@2015 CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS ACTION FUND

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2015/07/30/3686282/bernie-sanders-immigration/ [with comments]

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Bernie Sanders Has an Immigration Problem With the Left

Senator Bernie Sanders speaks at George Mason University on Oct. 28, 2015, in Fairfax, Virginia.
Photographer: Alex Wong/Getty Images

His rhetoric against guest-worker programs has brought him trouble with the left. Can he reframe it?

by Arit John
November 13, 2015 — 4:00 AM CST

With immigration in the forefront of the presidential race, Bernie Sanders faces a potential obstacle at Saturday's Democratic debate: How to defend his concerns about guest-worker programs without alienating would-be supporters.

As an independent senator from Vermont in 2007, Sanders was among progressives who objected to the program in President George W. Bush's immigration bill. Now, while seeking the Democrats' nomination, he's been accused of leaving Latinos “at the altar” with his vote against the bill; attacked by rival Martin O'Malley; and accused by immigration advocates of employing GOP talking points.

Sanders has been working to shore up his reputation as a fighter for immigrant rights, by hiring prominent activists and putting out a detailed policy agenda. On Monday, Sanders promised [ http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/trackers/2015-11-09/sanders-vows-immigration-action-beyond-obama-s-if-elected ] to go beyond President Barack Obama’s executive actions to prevent the deportation of people who would have been protected by the Senate immigration bill in 2013, “dismantling inhumane deportation programs,” and more.

But it's Sanders's rhetoric against guest-worker programs for legal immigrants that has brought him trouble with the left. He now says his problems with such programs are rooted in humanitarian concerns; his warnings about immigrants taking Americans' jobs, however, have gotten more attention. Whether he can move past the issue may depend on whether he can re-frame it to Democrats—in a way that doesn't evoke the GOP they'll face next fall.

‘Lower Wages’

At an immigration forum in Las Vegas on Sunday, O’Malley accused the rivals he's trailing of only supporting an immigration overhaul to win votes.

“When comprehensive immigration reform was up for a vote in the Congress, Senator Sanders went on Lou Dobbs’s show—are you familiar with Lou Dobbs?—and said that immigrants take our jobs and depress our wages,” O’Malley said [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/11/08/omalley-slams-clinton-and-sanders-for-poll-tested-triangulation-on-immigration/ ]. “Not only are those statements flat-out wrong, they actually harm the consensus.”

In that 2007 appearance, on CNN, Sanders said [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38M9vfg4TPE (next below; with comments)],

“If poverty is increasing and if wages are going down, I don’t know why we need millions of people to be coming into this country as guest workers who will work for lower wages than American workers and drive wages down, even lower than they are right now.”

“And as we know, the principle industries which hire the bulk of illegal aliens—that is construction, landscaping, leisure, hospitality—those are all industries in which wages are declining,” said Dobbs, an immigration [ http://www.thenation.com/article/lou-dobbs-american-hypocrite/ ] hardliner [ http://mediamatters.org/video/2015/08/19/lou-dobbs-offers-donald-trump-a-legal-justifica/205048 ] who's now at Fox Business. “I don't hear that discussed on the Senate floor by the proponents of this amnesty legislation.”

“That's right,” Sanders said. “They have no good response.”

The Sanders campaign notes even immigration activists weren't universally sold on the bill. Arturo Carmona, ?the campaign’s national Latino outreach director and southwest political director, said it would have created “slave-like conditions” for guest workers and “one of the worst pathways to citizenships that we’ve seen.” “It’s kind of an amnesia moment where people are just saying ‘He voted against it,’” Carmona said. “But who did he vote with? He voted with Latinos and with immigrant rights organizations.”

America's Voice founder Frank Sharry, whose group supports a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, said while he doesn't agree with what Sanders said, he doesn't think the sentiment comes from an anti-immigrant perspective.

Ultimately, Sharry said, Bush's bill failed for other reasons.

“We lost because Republicans would not support a bill—even though it was written to appeal to Republicans—because it had a legalization with a path to citizenship for 11 to 12 million undocumented immigrants,” Sharry said.

In other words, Republicans left Bush at the altar. “That’s why I don’t get all worked up like ‘Bernie Sanders screwed us,’” Sharry said. “Upon reflection, we really realized that we had made a mistake, a strategic mistake, in allowing progressives to get divided in hopes of getting Republican votes.”

‘Grossly Mistreated’

O'Malley's attack wasn't the first time Sanders’s guest-worker stance had met liberal criticism. In a July interview with Vox [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf-k6qOfXz0 (next below; with comments)],

Sanders called open borders a Koch brothers plot.

“What right-wing people in this country would love is an open border policy,” Sanders said. “Bring in all kinds of people to work for $2 or $3 an hour, that would be great for them.”

“Those are the talking points that Republicans use to drive a wedge between Latinos and the African-American vote, saying, ‘They’re coming to take your jobs,’” responded [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/immigration-bernie-sanders-gop-talking-points_55bbf39be4b06363d5a2572a ] Greisa Martinez of United We Dream.

What Sanders didn't talk about then was the humanitarian concerns surrounding guest-worker programs. He had before, writing a 2008 op-ed [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/the-harvest-of-shame_b_96759.html ] about visiting Florida tomato pickers that concluded U.S. consumers don't want their produce to be picked by workers “who are grossly mistreated, underpaid, and in some case even kept in chains.” Later that year, a Senate panel on which Sanders served held a hearing on the tomato pickers' conditions.

Mary Bauer of the Legal Aid Justice Center, who testified at the hearing, explained the bind such workers may find themselves in: “When they get to the United States, if the employment is less than ideal, if it’s not what was promised, they can’t go work anywhere else, and as a practical matter they can’t go home because they owe a huge amount of money they’ll never be able to pay back,” she said in an interview.

In 2013, Sanders voted for the new immigration bill, which included a more regulated guest-worker program negotiated [ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-03-30/business-labor-agreement-reached-on-u-s-guest-worker-program ] by two groups on opposite sides of the debate: the AFL-CIO, which opposed the 2007 bill, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said the backlash to Sanders's past comments highlighted the candidate's need to refine his rhetoric. When Sanders talks about immigration leading to lower wages, he's talking specifically about low-wage guest-worker programs, Costa said, and “it’s hard to get that context in a sound bite.”

During Democrats' last debate on Oct. 13, Sanders tried to do just that. CNN's Juan Carlos Lopez asked Sanders why Latinos should trust him on immigration when he voted against the 2007 bill and “left them at the altar.”

Sanders replied [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NEyNQmavq8 (next below; with comments)]:

I didn't leave anybody at the altar. I voted against that piece of legislation because it had guest-worker provisions in it which the Southern Poverty Law Center talked about being semi-slavery. Guest workers are coming in, they're working under terrible conditions, but if they stand up for their rights, they're thrown out of the country. I was not the only progressive to vote against that legislation for that reason. Tom Harkin, a very good friend of Hillary Clinton's and mine, one of the leading labor advocates, also voted against that.

That didn’t end the discussion. “Tom Harkin isn’t running for president,” Lopez said. “You are.”

©2015 Bloomberg L.P.

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-11-13/bernie-sanders-has-an-immigration-problem-with-the-left

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Questions Farm Workers Have for Bernie Sanders

Getty

By Arturo S. Rodríguez
President, United Farm Workers
02/17/2016 11:55 pm ET | Updated Feb 18, 2016

There is more to Bernie Sanders' record on immigration than what was revealed during his debate exchange with Hillary Clinton last week in Wisconsin. He has made invaluable contributions to the presidential debate, championing issues such as income inequality and economic unfairness that the United Farm Workers embraces. But the UFW has also been intimately involved championing badly needed reform for immigrants, especially farm workers, over the last 16 years. Sen. Sanders has had a contradictory record on immigration.

We came close to winning comprehensive immigration reform when a bipartisan bill by Sens. Edward Kennedy and John McCain nearly passed the Senate in 2007. That measure, which would have granted legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants, also included AgJobs, negotiated by the UFW and major grower associations. AgJobs would have let undocumented farm workers earn the right to permanently stay in this country by continuing to work in agriculture after passing criminal background and national security checks.

The 2007 comprehensive bill had flaws, including big expenditures on border enforcement and a wall. There were too few guarantees to protect guest workers in new industries, although the bill boosted safeguards for guest workers in agriculture.

The UFW had to make hard and painful choices during negotiations with historic adversaries -- the growers -- in exchange for legal standing freeing the undocumented from what makes them so vulnerable to abuse. If that proposal--which President George W. Bush pledged to sign -- had passed in 2007, would there still be 11 million undocumented immigrants living today in fear and constantly subjected to mistreatment? There would not be. Would Donald Trump and most Republican presidential candidates be appealing today to bigotry and rancor by scapegoating immigrants? Maybe, but he would have to deal with as many as a million new voters. The new president will also have to make painful choices, even as the Latino and immigrant vote, and the immigrant rights movement gain strength.

Sen. Sanders voted against the Kennedy-McCain bill and led the push for amendments that killed the measure because he opposed the conditions pushed by business interests for guest workers, he said during the Feb. 11 debate.

But Sen. Sanders' opposition to abusive guest worker programs didn't extend to a bill he cosponsored in 2011, to allow agricultural guest workers into his home state's largest farm sector -- Vermont's dairy industry. The federal H2A guest worker program only applies to seasonal farm industries; dairies offer year-round employment so they are excluded. But S. 852, cosponsored by Sen. Sanders, would have let dairies use H2A guest workers. There is no cap on the number of H2A farm workers and a well-documented pattern of abuse of agricultural workers in the H2A program. So the Sanders-backed measure could have let dairies replace all current domestic farm laborers with foreign guest workers -- with the same damaging impacts on wages and working conditions for both domestic and foreign guest workers Sen. Sanders decried in other industries.

Although Sen. Sanders opposes use of guest workers because of concerns over exploitation, is he willing to make an exception for guest workers in agriculture? Is this the same kind of exception that saw -- and still sees -- farm workers excluded from the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act guaranteeing minimum wages and overtime pay after eight hours, and other protections.

For the last five decades I've seen the farm labor system in this country chew up and spit out farm workers, denying them the most basic protections afforded nearly all other American workers. That is wrong.

The UFW respects Sen. Sanders' record on many things. But his contradictory immigration record troubles farm workers. We hope he can address these questions during the next presidential debates and town halls.

Copyright © 2016 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arturo-s-rodriguez/questions-farm-workers-ha_b_9259846.html [with comments]

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Bernie Sanders' Restrictive Views on Immigration

Sen. Sanders has a mixed immigration record
attribution: REUTERS

By snowman3
Friday Feb 19, 2016 9:01 AM CST

Bernie Sanders’ position and record on immigration has been the subject of much debate leading up to the Nevada caucuses, including a critical op ed [ http://www.univision.com/noticias/opinion/luis-gutierrez-sanders-voted-with-republicans ] published yesterday on Univision by Rep Luis Gutiérrez, Chairman of the Immigration Task Force of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Much of Rep Gutiérrez’ (who has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president) criticisms stem from Senator Sanders’ ‘No’ vote on the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill of 2007. Having listened to or read many of Bernie’s speeches [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC7r8cqupxs ] during [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC7r8cqupxs ] the immigration reform [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC7r8cqupxs ] debates [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4h1PVE5alw ] in 2007 and in 2013, I think the best explanation of Bernie’s views on both bills come from a floor speech [ https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2013-06-13/pdf/CREC-2013-06-13-pt1-PgS4460-2.pdf#page=6 ] given by Sen Sanders in 2013. Firstly, Sen Sanders notes his own background as a son of an immigrant.

As the son of an immigrant--my dad came to this country at the age of 17 from Poland--I strongly support the concept of immigration reform, and I applaud the Judiciary Committee and all of those people who have been working hard on this legislation.

Sen Sanders is strongly in favor of protecting immigrants, undocumented or otherwise, who are already in this country. As he said:

There are a lot of provisions within this bill that I think should be strongly supported by the American people.

I strongly support a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country.

I strongly support the DREAM Act to make sure the children of illegal immigrants who were brought into this country by their parents years ago are allowed to become citizens.

I strongly support providing legal status to foreign workers on family farms. Dairy farmers in Vermont and the owners of apple orchards in my State have told me that without these workers, they would go out of business, and it is obviously true in many parts of this country.

However, Bernie has great concern with the legal immigration provisions included in both the 2007 and 2013 bills, namely the guest worker provisions, of which Bernie counts both low-skilled and high-skilled immigrants. As he stated in that same 2013 floor speech:

At a time when nearly 14 percent of the American people do not have a full-time job, at a time when the middle class continues to disappear, and at a time when tens of millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages, it makes no sense to me that the immigration reform bill includes a massive increase in temporary guest worker programs that will allow large corporations to import and bring into this country hundreds of thousands of temporary blue-collar and white-collar guest workers from overseas. That makes no sense to me.

He further stated:

Let me be very clear. The same corporations and businesses that support a massive expansion in guest worker programs are opposed to raising the minimum wage. They have long supported the outsourcing of American jobs. They have reduced wages and benefits of American workers at a time when corporate profits are at an all-time high. In too many cases, the H-2B program for lower skilled guest workers and the H-1B for high-skilled guest workers are being used by employers to drive down the wages and benefits of American workers and to replace American workers with cheap labor from abroad.

The 2007 Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill Vote

This concern about immigrants, both lower skilled H-2B and high-skilled H-1B workers, driving down Americans’ wages is a long standing concern of Sen Sanders. During the 2007 debate [ https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2007-05-22/pdf/CREC-2007-05-22-pt1-PgS6430-2.pdf#page=11 ] Sen Sanders outlined his concern with that Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill. He stated

Here is my concern about this legislation. At a time when millions of Americans are working longer hours for low wages and have seen real cuts in their wages and benefits, this legislation would, over a period of years, bring millions of low-wage workers from other countries into the United States. If wages are already this low in Vermont and throughout the country, what happens when more and more people are forced to compete for these jobs? Sadly, in our country today—and this is a real tragedy—over 25 percent of our children drop out of high school. In some minority neighborhoods, that number is even higher. What kind of jobs will be available for those young people?

The congressional [ https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2007-05-22/pdf/CREC-2007-05-22-pt1-PgS6430-2.pdf#page=11 ] record [ https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2007-06-07/pdf/CREC-2007-06-07-pt1-PgS7271-6.pdf#page=12 ] is [ https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2007-06-06/pdf/CREC-2007-06-06-pt1-PgS7099-3.pdf#page=40 ] clear [ https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2007-05-24/pdf/CREC-2007-05-24-pt1-PgS6598.pdf#page=13 ] - his objection to the 2007 immigration bill was based on his concern about immigrants lowering Americans’ wages. In debates [ http://www.nytimes.com/live/first-democratic-debate-cnn-election-2016/fact-check-bernie-sanders-explains-opposing-immigration-bill/ ] this primary season, Bernie has excused his vote against immigration reform in 2007 saying that he voted against it because the guest worker program is akin to semi-slavery. I went through the congressional record of the 110th Congress [ http://thomas.loc.gov/home/LegislativeData.php?&n=Record&c=110 ], looking for evidence of Bernie’s concern about guest workers being treated as semi-slaves, being the reason for his ‘no’ vote. I could find none. I invite the reader to find any speech, interview or press release — any medium at all — from 2007 where Bernie Sanders stated he was voting against that bill due to his concern about guest workers being treated as semi-slaves. Sen. Sanders’ press release [ http://votesmart.org/public-statement/261790/immigration ] from that debate also clearly states his concern about protecting American workers from immigrant workers.

What concerns me," Senator Sanders said, "are provisions in the bill that would bring low-wage workers into this country in order to depress the already declining wages of American workers. With poverty increasing and the middle-class shrinking, we must not force American workers into even more economic distress."

The 2013 Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill Vote

In 2013, Sen Sanders voted in favor of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill, despite the 2013 version containing similar guest worker provisions.

Why the change of vote from 2007 despite the guest worker program remaining that he previously found objectionable? Indeed, his floor speech (video above [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4h1PVE5alw (with comments)]) at the time clearly mentioned the same concerns he had in 2007. He also spoke about the dangers of bringing in additional immigrant workers [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/05/25/this-is-a-massive-effort-to-attract-cheap-labor-why-sen-bernie-sanders-is-skeptical-of-guest-workers/ ] to the Washington Post.

The bottom line is that I feel, very much, that a lot of the initiative behind these guest workers programs, a very large expansion of guest worker programs — H2B visas would go up to as many as 195,000, H1B to as many as 205,000 a year — is coming from large corporations who want cheap labor from abroad. Absolutely, there is a need for foreign labor. I recognize that in agriculture and certain areas in the high tech industry, you need foreign labor. But this is a massive effort to attract cheap labor, a great disservice to American workers.

Senator Sanders could have pointed out that labor unions, like the AFL-CIO, which were against the 2007 bill because of views similar to Sen Sanders’, had flipped and were now supporting the 2013 version [ http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/how-unions-went-from-border-hawks-to-immigration-doves ]. But he didn’t. To him, the guest worker program, both low-skilled and H1-B workers, still represented a “massive effort to attract cheap labor [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/05/25/this-is-a-massive-effort-to-attract-cheap-labor-why-sen-bernie-sanders-is-skeptical-of-guest-workers/ ]”. Ostensibly, Sen Sanders switched his vote in 2013 because he was able to get $1.5 billion in funding included that would provide jobs for 400,000 teenagers, an amount he himself said “doesn’t go anywhere far enough” [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvEfCsSFueg&feature=youtu.be&t=120 ]. Sanders’ willingness to trade his support for the 2013 immigration bill for the $1.5B funding for youth jobs further belies his claim of prohibitive concern about guest workers being taken advantage of. After all, demanding inclusion of this $1.5B in funding for jobs for teenagers in a seemingly unrelated bill about immigration, only makes sense if you think the immigration bill will affect jobs for young people, not if your concern is about corporations exploiting guest workers.

The cynic in me wonders if, as a veteran politician, he realized then what a disaster having two ‘no’ votes on comprehensive immigration reform would have been in a democratic presidential primary. Anyone wanting to run for President as a democrat would have realized the political necessity of finding a way to get to a ‘yes’ vote on that 2013 immigration reform bill. Indeed, only four months after that 2013 vote, Sen Sanders was openly discussing [ http://inthesetimes.com/article/15784/social_democracy_in_the_south ] the possibility of running [ http://crooksandliars.com/diane-sweet/bernie-sanders-considering-run ] for president in 2016.

Strange Bedfellows

Sen Sanders’ views that immigrant workers provide a downward pressure on American wages has made for strange bedfellows with him on that topic. This is not to say that he shares the racist views of the people mentioned below who praised his views. In fact, I know he is not a racist and that he abhors the racist positions of these people. But his views about immigrants driving down American wages are so far from progressive thought that they find praise among right wing anti-immigrant zealots. For example, in 2007 he appeared on nativist bigot Lou Dobbs’ show (video below [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38M9vfg4TPE (with comments)]) to argue against the comprehensive immigration bill, not out of concern about guest workers’ well-being, but about the fear of these immigrant workers driving down American wages. Sen Sanders made his case, while Lou Dobbs ranted about “socio ethnic-centric interest groups who really have very little regard for the tradition of this country , the values of this country or the constituents”.

Senator Sanders’ focus on restricting the flow of legal immigrants in order to protect American workers has also earned him praise from some embarrassing quarters [ http://time.com/4170591/bernie-sanders-immigration-conservatives/ ].

Noted bigot [ http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2008/03/08/20152/steve-king-record/ ] Rep Steve King:

“I admire Bernie’s passion and I notice that his immigration position is closer to mine than it is some of the presidential candidates on the Republican side,” King said in an interview with an Iowa radio station over this past summer. “He’s said ‘Let’s take care of American workers.’ I’m all for that.”

King went further:

“ and Bernie has taken some positions that I agree with. And part of his immigration policy is something that I agree with.”

Bernie’s focus on protecting Americans’ wages from immigrants is also the only explanation I can come up with for why he voted for a entirely symbolic amendment [ https://www.congress.gov/amendment/109th-congress/house-amendment/971/text ] in 2006 that aimed to protect the Minutemen militia. Rep Gutiérrez states [ http://www.univision.com/noticias/opinion/luis-gutierrez-sanders-voted-with-republicans ]:

The same year, House Republicans were playing politics on behalf of their friends in the Minutemen, the vigilantes who set up outposts at the border to hunt immigrants. Republicans even crafted a bill that played right into one of their right-wing conspiracy theories that the U.S. government was somehow guiding immigrants past the Minutemen camps in the desert.

And when Republican Representative Jack Kingston put forward an amendment restricting the Department of Homeland Security from revealing information about groups like the Minutemen – a pure fantasy driven by anti-immigrant pandering to the right-wing -- Representative Sanders took the bait, split with Latinos and progressives in Congress, and voted in favor of this absurd measure.

Why would Bernie possibly have voted for this? Even racist former Rep Tom Tancredo was shocked [ http://www.buzzfeed.com/evanmcsan/in-2006-bernie-sanders-voted-in-support-of-an-immigration-co ] to have learned that Bernie voted in favor of that amendment — “I certainly would never have expected it”, he said. Senator Sanders campaign could only say [id.] that the amendment was “a meaningless thing” when asked about it.

Immigration Facts

Sen Sanders’ views that immigrant workers (both high and low skilled) drive down American wages is out of step with progressive thought and research. As Think Progress states [ http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2015/07/30/3686282/bernie-sanders-immigration/ (item third above)]:

Studies have shown that immigrants actually create jobs [ https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/news/2013/08/29/73203/immigration-helps-american-workers-wages-and-job-opportunities/ ] for American workers. Researchers recently found [ http://www.nber.org/papers/w21123 ] that each new immigrant has produced about 1.2 new jobs in the U.S., most of which have gone to native-born workers. And according to the Atlantic [ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/05/actually-immigration-can-create-jobs/391997/ ], an influx in immigration can cause non-tradable professions — jobs like hospitality and construction that cannot be outsourced — to see a wage increase because the demand for goods and services grows with the expanding population.

Furthermore, Sanders’ endorsers Robert Reich and MoveOn.org made a video (see below [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR3JyVg7VzU (with comments)]) last year combating some of the myths about immigration spewed by Donald Trump. Reich states that we need more immigrant workers and that immigrants do not take away Americans’ jobs. Bernie Sanders’ restrictive immigration views would seem to be out of step with Reich’s, and, on the narrow point about immigrants lowering American wages, alarmingly closer to Trumps’ than to progressive thinking.

As an immigrant myself, and coming from a family of immigrants, immigration reform is personal to me. I have no doubt that a President Sanders would work to improve the lives of immigrants already in the country, including making a pathway to citizenship, enacting the DREAM act and working to end deportations. But quite frankly, I also have no doubt he views efforts to increase legal immigration with deep suspicion, and even outright hostility.

© Kos Media, LLC (emphasis in original)

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/2/19/1480831/-Bernie-Sanders-Restrictive-Views-on-Immigration [with comments]

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Bernie Is No Dream Candidate for Immigrants

Some bad votes, Bernie.

His record on immigration issues isn't a good one.

By Maria Cardona
Feb. 19, 2016, at 1:30 p.m.

On Saturday, Nevada will hold the first of its two presidential caucuses. When campaigning here, candidates would be wise to remember that this state, with its Spanish speakers and immigrant labor, its majority-minority youth and growing Latino communities, looks a whole lot like a future version of America.

The Nevadans I know want a candidate who welcomes these changes, someone who can build on President Barack Obama's strong immigration efforts. For Nevadans, demographics go deeper than documentation, and as America becomes more diverse we ask that the next president work to help all Latino families.

Clearly, Republican candidates want to roll back immigration reform, build a wall and the front-runners want to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants. But a Democratic hopeful, Sen. Bernie Sanders, has his own mixed record on the issue. In favoring American laborers over their immigrant counterparts, and in focusing solely on economics, Sanders has at times defied progressives, earning praise from those on the right whose policies have made things harder for immigrants instead.

Take ultra-conservative Rep. Steve King, who famously called [ http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/steve-king-and-the-case-of-the-cantaloupe-calves ] border-crossers drug mules with "calves the size of cantaloupes." King once admitted, "Bernie has taken some positions that I agree with. And part of his immigration policy is something that I agree with."

King's comments are not unfounded. Back in 2007, then-Rep. Sanders stood with conservatives in rejecting an immigration overhaul bill, using language that "was starkly economic about guest-worker visas, which were viewed skeptically by organized labor," as The New York Times described [ http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/10/19/bernie-sanders-cant-escape-questions-about-2007-vote-on-immigration-overhaul/ ], but now Sen. Sanders justifies his vote solely along human rights lines. Facts matter.

In a speech on the Senate floor about the vote, Sanders said the bill was about "bringing into this country over a period of years millions of low-wage temporary workers with the result that wages and benefits in this country, which are already going down, will go down even further." This is a Republican talking point that has been used to oppose comprehensive immigration reform.

Following that "no" vote, major immigration legislation sat on a shelf until 2013, at which point Sanders finally joined most Democrats in voting [ http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/10/19/bernie-sanders-cant-escape-questions-about-2007-vote-on-immigration-overhaul/ ] "yes." His earlier resistance may have struck constituents as righteous, but any progress is better than no progress, and those six years of inaction had countless immigrants living in fear of deportation.

Less easily justified is Sanders' 2006 vote [ http://www.buzzfeed.com/evanmcsan/in-2006-bernie-sanders-voted-in-support-of-an-immigration-co ] in support of the Minutemen, a band of border-state vigilantes criticized [ https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2005/minutemen-other-anti-immigrant-militia-groups-stake-out-arizona-border ] by the Southern Poverty Law Center for the group's "military maneuvers and racist talk," and even later naming [ https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2015/groups-listing ] some branches "nativist extremist." Yet again, Sanders sided with Republicans on an amendment to block U.S. authorities from revealing the Minutemen's whereabouts to Mexico.

Sanders' campaign has downplayed [ http://www.buzzfeed.com/evanmcsan/in-2006-bernie-sanders-voted-in-support-of-an-immigration-co ] that vote as inconsequential. By that measure, why vote for the amendment at all? Even on a purely symbolic level, support for the Minutemen amounts to an endorsement of modern-day right-wing militias in this country.

As with gun protections, Sanders can perhaps get away with certain choices in a small state near the Canadian border that he could never justify on a national stage. After all, only 4 percent [ http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/money/2014/07/31/vermont-immigration-patterns-differ-us/13402973/ ] of Vermonters are immigrants as opposed to roughly 13 percent [ http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states ] of Americans overall.

In Nevada, on the other hand, nearly one in five [ http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/32000.html ] residents come from outside the country, most commonly [ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/10/07/a-shift-from-germany-to-mexico-for-americas-immigrants/ft_15-09-28_immigationmapsgif/ ] Mexico. Nevada tops [ http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-nevada-idUSKCN0J300H20141119 ] the nation in its share of undocumented immigrants. While the vast majority of Nevadans are from here, and while they continue to struggle for jobs, many still have family south of the border.

This issue goes beyond supply and demand. With his narrow focus on American workers, Sanders has taken stances on immigration different from those that would help the immigrant and Latino communities who lose sleep at night afraid of hearing a knock on their door.

Sanders’ campaign proposals may check the right boxes now, but historically, in his efforts to help Americans born here, he has sometimes made things harder for many immigrants and their families, those living in the shadows, arduously contributing to our society, but living in fear. Latino and immigrant voters need to decide whether that is deserving of their support.

Copyright 2016 © U.S. News & World Report LP

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-02-19/in-nevada-bernie-sanders-immigration-record-is-a-nightmare

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Clinton campaign contrasts Sanders's stories on 2007 immigration vote

Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07

"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790

F6

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