That fact doesn't make me anti immigrant. I'm for higher wages. The fact is people in a guest worker program and to an even greater extent, people living in the shadows as undocumented immigrants have zero bargaining power and can be exploited with lower wages. It drives down wages for every worker. I'm all for immigrants, but they should be out in the open and on a level playing field.

...in justification of his 2007 vote.

His claim, or his defense, is that he opposed the bill because of the same concern for 'slave-like' conditions for guest workers.

Here he is answering the question of whether his opposition centered on wages or on slavery:


SALINAS: So, Senator, were you concerned with working conditions for guestworkers, or really because you think immigrants drive down wages and take jobs from Americans?

SANDERS: Well, you have guest worker programs that have been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the important institutions in this country who studies these issues, as guest workers programs akin to slavery, where people came in. They were cheated. They were abused. They were humiliated. And if they stood up for their rights, they would be thrown out of the country.

Of course, that type of (inaudible) leads to a race to the bottom for all of our people. And I worked very hard on that issue...

In my view, Sanders disingenuously latched on to the objections of the Latino advocacy groups opposed to Ted Kennedy's 2007 immigration bill and adopted those as his public defense of his vote. Several statements made directly after the vote contradict him on this.

Right in the answer you quoted, he speaks to both sides. Yes, appropriate to the concern of the audience at hand, he first mentions the working conditions. But then he immediately says that the other was a concern as well, that it drives down wages for everyone ("leads to a race to the bottom for all of our people&quot . What more do you want?

Won't matter, a lot of Sanders' and Trump's supporters are Nationalists.

You are twisting, distorting and misrepresenting what Sanders is saying and doing. You have learned well, Brockolyte!

...they would disagree that the bill's effects and consequences would be limited to 'criminals.'

_____On behalf of the ACLU, a non-partisan organization with hundreds of thousands of activists and members and 53 affiliates nationwide, we urge you to vote against H.R. 6094, the Community Protection Act, and H.R. 6095, the Immigration Law Enforcement Act. In urging “no” votes, the ACLU concludes that these misnamed bills waste scarce resources, unacceptably reduce or eliminate due process for both legal and undocumented immigrants, expand constitutionally infirm detention removal powers and procedures, and threaten civil liberties.

In particular, H.R. 6094 must be opposed because it:

Broadens the constitutionally infirm practice of indefinite detention. The U.S. Supreme Court has twice ruled that indefinite detention raises constitutional concerns, yet this bill unwisely expands that power instead of eliminating the Department of Homeland Security’s (“DHS’) authority to hold certain immigrants whose asylum claims are denied. The holding of people indefinitely because they have been ordered to return to a country that will not accept them is inhumane and an enormous waste of scarce detention resources. Indefinite detention is a feature we expect of repressive regimes, not of our own.

Legislation is not needed on this issue. Instead of broadening this practice, Congress should end it. Over 1,000 individuals are subjected to indefinite detention at the present time. In some cases, it is not possible for the government to deport these individuals because the U.S. does not maintain diplomatic relations with the country of origin.

Limits the type of claims immigrants can bring to challenge unlawful detention. Unwisely, the bill would eliminate existing avenues for challenging the implementation of regulations and statutes governing detention. Instead, immigrants who are subjected to the well-documented bureaucratic bungling and abuse of detention authority by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) would be limited to bringing Constitutional challenges to their detention under the Writ of Habeas Corpus. Such claim-limiting provisions ignore ICE’s failures. As we ramp up the number of detention facilities, we should not eliminate the ability to have courts review cases in which ICE’s treatment of non-citizens falls below the standards Congress has established for detention.

Funnels all challenges to detentions into one U.S. District Court. Compounding the problems posed by proposed claims limitations, the bill would create only one proper venue for challenging detention conditions and decisions about whether a non-citizen should be detained – the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Neither this Court, nor any other federal District Court, is equipped to handle such an enormous increase in its docket. Congress has not provided sufficient resources, nor has it added judgeships to this Court to handle such a case. Rather than increasing the efficient processing of immigrants and aliens, such a funneling of cases will create a new backlog of immigration cases.

Expands the unjust practice of expedited removal -- deportation without a lawyer, hearing, or court review. Expedited removal would be vastly broadened under H.R. 6095. The bill would grant extraordinary and unprecedented power to low-level immigration officers to remove individuals believed to be recently arrived undocumented immigrants within 100 miles of the border, without review or a fair hearing. Even as currently applied, expedited removal has resulted in terrible mistakes, including its wrongful application to genuine refugees and even to U.S. citizens. In short, the application of expedited removal – in its current form – needs reform.

Expedited removal should be fixed, not expanded. Expanding it will inevitably result in the wrongful arrest and possible deportation of legal residents and even U.S. citizens who are of Mexican-American heritage or who “look foreign” to a Border Patrol officer.

Finally, H.R. 6095 should be opposed because it:

Will lead to a diversion of scarce state and local law enforcement resources away from stopping crime. Despite widespread opposition by police organizations and departments across the nation, the bill would authorize state and local law enforcement agencies to enforce civil immigration law violations. Although it would not require state and local police to enforce the immigration laws, it will undermine carefully won trust between the police and new immigrant communities, leading to an overall reduction in public safety, with a large segment of the population afraid to report crimes out of fear of being deported.

Erects new barriers to judicial review. The bill would eliminate the ability of federal District Courts to enjoin behavior and practices by ICE and DHS that violate regulations, laws and our Constitution. Under the bill, ICE and DHS could seek to have injunctions vacated if judges do not respond to motions to vacate these injunctions within 15 days. Injunctions are granted when judges believe true violations that need reform have been demonstrated. The lengthy, well-documented history of abuses by these two bureaucracies demonstrates the need for occasional court oversight. Yet, these bills would effectively strip that check on DHS and ICE power. Given the high workloads faced by America's federal courts, it is all too likely that many meritorious immigration appeals would never receive serious review from a judge and would be dismissed without any judicial consideration of their merits.

In short, these bills do not live up to their promise. The ACLU has little hope that the bills can achieve immigration reform that does not lessen immigrants’ due process and threaten their civil liberties.

read (and learn about the tripe you're defending) : https://www.aclu.org/letter/aclu-letter-house-representatives-urging-opposition-hr-6094-and-hr-6095