Bernie Sanders calls for comprehensive immigration reform

By Kyle Roerink

Published Friday, June 19, 2015 | 12:44 p.m.

Updated Friday, June 19, 2015 | 1:34 p.m.

Closing out a week of presidential candidates in Las Vegas rolling out their policy platforms on immigration, Democratic hopeful Bernie Sanders called the nation’s policies on the issue “disgraceful.”

He criticized Republican proposals for reform, demanded a path to citizenship for undocumented residents and called for ending mass deportations.

Sanders, an Independent U.S. senator from Vermont, is an underdog chasing the Democratic presidential nomination. His speech today followed one on Thursday by the party’s frontrunner, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Sanders’ Las Vegas visit marked his first significant statements on immigration policy of his campaign.

Like Clinton, he was outspoken in his support for a deferred-action program that allows children of undocumented immigrations to remain in the country.

Both also championed the executive actions President Barack Obama took to provide quasi-citizenship status to some undocumented immigrants. Those actions are tied up in a legal battle spurred by Republicans. Sanders and Clinton both said they would take further executive actions on immigration if elected.

Sanders, 73, spoke to a about 400 members of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, which held a three-day conference at the Aria this week.

Sanders has served nine years in the Senate and supported the 2013 immigration reform bill passed by the chamber and ignored by the U.S. House.

Sanders, the son of a Polish immigrant, told a story about Florida tomato farmers arrested for underpaying undocumented laborers and forcing them to work.

“How many fields or factories are there where people without legal status are used up and thrown away?” he said. “We cannot continue to run an economy where millions are made so vulnerable because of their undocumented status. We have to ask ourselves who benefits from this exploitation.”

Sanders blasted Republican reform proposals that call for more guest worker programs for immigrants.

Republican Ben Carson, who spoke at the conference Wednesday, called for expanding similar programs and sealing the nation’s borders. He was the only GOP presidential candidate to speak at the conference.

In another area resembling Clinton’s policies, Sanders rejected calls to build a fence along the nation’s borders and criticized lawmakers who have sponsored voting reforms that provide more barriers to casting ballots.

Those policies are often touted to prevent fraud but criticized for disproportionately affecting minority and low-income voters. Clinton supports automatic, universal voter registration once citizens turn 18.

“It seems to me that anybody who runs for office should have the guts to stand up for his or her constituents and argue for their votes,” Sanders said. “It is only cowards who do everything they can to lower voter turnout and suppress the vote.”

Sanders began his day in Las Vegas at Treasure Island at a rally with more than 700 supporters. He ridiculed billionaire Sheldon Adelson, the casino mogul who, according to The Washington Post, spent more than $100 million on the 2012 presidential race.

“Today we live in the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, but the vast majority of the American people do not know that, do not feel that, because almost all of that wealth today rests in the hands of a tiny few,” Sanders said. “What we are saying to the billionaire class is, ‘Your greed, which is destroying this country, has got to end.’”