Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said “passing a legislative solution to our broken immigration system will be a top priority” if he becomes president. “But let me be clear,” Sanders said at an immigration summit in Las Vegas, “I will not wait around for Congress to act. Instead, in the first 100 days of my administration, I will work to take executive action to accomplish what Congress has failed to do and build upon President Obama’s executive orders” that exempt millions of people from deportation.
His plan would be modeled along the lines of the bipartisan Senate bill of 2013. Sanders said he would provide administrative relief to all undocumented immigrants who would have been legalized if the 2013 immigration bill had been enacted. The Senate bill proposed legal status for undocumented immigrants in the United States before 2012 and a path to citizenship for people who paid a penalty and any back taxes, learned English and cleared a background check. A separate and shorter path to citizenship was offered for agricultural workers. The bill also would have created a new guest-worker program to replace the current H-2A visa.
“Let us be frank, today’s undocumented workers play an extraordinarily important role in our economy. Without these workers it is likely that much of our agricultural system would collapse,” said Sanders. “Undocumented workers are doing the extremely difficult work of harvesting our crops, building our homes, cooking our meals and caring for our children. They are part of the fabric of America.”
Farm groups have supported immigration reform as a way to assure a labor supply. By some estimate, as many as two-thirds of the two million agricultural workers are undocumented.
Politico said immigrants in the country for at least five years would be eligible for protection under Sanders’ plan. “The campaign did not lay out other requirements, such as background checks, that the immigrants would have to meet in order to get deportation relief,” it said. Democrats seeking their party’s nomination for president have taken “increasingly liberal stances on immigration as they court Latino and Asian voters who will be a critical bloc in 2016.”
Hillary Clinton also has promised to do more than Obama to prevent deportations. On her website, Clinton says, “Congress must pass comprehensive immigration reform that provides a path to citizenship, treats every person with dignity, upholds the rule of law, protects our borders and national security, and brings millions of hardworking people into the formal economy.”