Bernie Sanders promises extensive relief in immigration plan
Bernie Sanders promised he would expand relief for immigrants in the U.S. illegally if he is elected president even more than President Obama did through executive actions during his first and second terms.
The president's executive actions in 2012 and 2014 suspended the threat of deportation for children brought to the U.S. illegally as children (so-called DREAMers) and the undocumented parents of children who were either born in the U.S. or are Lawful Permanent Residents.
Sanders said Monday he would also protect the parents of DREAMers, other family members, and other members of the immigrant population who would have been given the chance to become citizens if a 2013 immigration reform bill that passed the Senate but not the House had become law.
"As president, passing a legislative solution to our broken immigration system will be a top priority. But, let me be clear: I will not wait around for Congress to act. Instead, beginning in the first 100 days of my administration, I will work to take extensive executive action to accomplish what Congress has failed to do and to build upon President Obama's executive orders," Sen. Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, said at an immigration reform summit in Las Vegas, Nevada.
His pledge to expand on the relief provided by President Obama echoed a similar pledge by Clinton in May. She said she would not necessarily create more categories for deportation deferrals, but rather would make it easier for people in the country illegally to make the argument to stay.
Sanders talked about his support for the 2013 bill, although he felt the pathway to citizenship was "unnecessarily linked to border security triggers" that were being used to delay or deny the process for millions. He also criticized the fines that undocumented immigrants would have had to pay, which he believed would have prevented the poorest immigrants from accessing relief. Future legislation should include a pathway to citizenship, he said, that is faster and accessible to those at the bottom of the economic ladder.
Sanders also said he would direct immigration officers to stop initiating the deportation process for anyone who might be eligible for relief, end "inhumane deportation programs" and private detention centers, and stop criminalizing immigration.
"We should not deny a path to citizenship to an undocumented parent for re-entering the country after being separated from their children or for not having a drivers' license," he said.
Additionally, he promised to "extend humane treatment and asylum" to victims of domestic violence and unaccompanied children fleeing persecution in Latin America.
In the past, Sanders has expressed concern about immigration reform because he said corporate America viewed it as a way to bring low-cost labor into the country. In 2007, he cited those concerns when he voted against comprehensive reform legislation negotiated by Sens. John McCain and Ted Kennedy.