"Bernie's words about his vote against the 2007 Immigration Bill"

[berniepdx420]

By Maggie Haberman

..snip

Mr. Sanders replied. “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.”

He added, “Progressives did vote against that for that reason. My view right now — and always has been — is that when you have 11 million undocumented people in this country, we need comprehensive immigration reform, we need a path toward citizenship, we need to take people out of the shadows.”

snip...

Six years later, Mr. Sanders again had concerns about a comprehensive immigration bill, in part for the same reason — concern that immigration would keep down wages of American workers. But he voted for it after helping secure a key provision for a $1.5 billion training program for younger workers.

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/10/19/bernie-sanders-cant-escape-questions-about-2007-vote-on-immigration-overhaul/?_r=0

This is a good illustration of why I campaign so hard for Bernie and against Hillary... Today she sent out her henchman to categorize the above mentioned vote this way....

"Top Latino Politicians Say Bernie Sanders Has a Terrible Record on Immigration "

Mr. Castro and Congressman Luis Gutiérrez of Illinois, a national leader on immigration reform, spoke in a call organized by the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. Both Clinton supporters, along with immigrant advocates, eviscerated Mr. Sanders for voting against an immigration reform bill in 2007 and voting to protect the Minutemen, a private militia which patrolled the Mexican border to keep immigrants from entering the United States illegally.

“The truth is, look, he was absent from most of the critical immigration debates,” Mr. Gutiérrez said. “Unfortunately, when he did show up, his record is troubling.”

Mr. Gutiérrez said that it was “just as troubling” that Mr. Sanders never “improved” his record in the years following his 2007 vote. “The question Latinos have to ask themselves is: where was Senator Sanders when we needed him most?”

“When we needed someone to stand up, Sanders was playing for the wrong team,” he added. “I want someone who is playing for the right team.”

http://observer.com/2016/02/top-latino-politicians-say-bernie-sanders-has-a-terrible-record-on-immigration/

[Live and Learn]

1. Fighting for American workers and for immigrants at the same time. That is a true statesman. nt

[berniepdx420]

2. can you believe how they attacked him for it today... straight up lied

[Live and Learn]

4. Yep. It is becoming commonplace and it is disgusting,

We will not let their memes go unchallenged this time.

[PatrickforO]

3. The Clinton campaign is twisting this up prettily.

Sadly, their lie of omission may work for some, but not for me. Sanders specifically cited the 2007 version of the Act in tonight's town hall, which was IN FACT opposed by LULAC.

Here are some excerpts from a 2012 article in the Washington Examiner. The link to the entire article is below. If you're for Clinton that's great, but this kind of dissimulation won't work here.

"Kennedy and McCain had tried to get a bill going in 2005 and 2006 without much success. Most Republicans were automatically opposed to anything that smacked of amnesty -- like the bill's pathway to legalization for existing immigrants. But in 2007, the Democrats regained control of the House. It was at this point that many on the Left began to step away. Frank Sharry, who was then executive director of the National Immigration Forum, told The Washington Examiner that although conservative opposition was the biggest stumbling block, there were also "divisions on the Left."

"There was little mobilization in support of the bill," Sharry said. Organized labor was split. The Service Employees International Union favored a deal. But the larger AFL-CIO opposed guest-worker programs, which were expanded in the bill to win Big Business and GOP support. More strikingly, it lost the support of several pro-immigration groups, such as the League of United Latin American Citizens.

"LULAC cannot support a bill that will separate families and lead to the exploitation of immigrant workers," said Executive Director Brent Wilkes in a May 2007 statement. In a June 2007, the American Immigration Lawyers Association said it "cannot support enactment of the Senate bill in its current form," citing no fewer than six major problems."

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/why-immigration-reform-didnt-happen-in-2007/article/2513987

You can accuse Sanders all you want here, but he was in very good company in opposing this bill because it had provisions that basically allowed the corporate elites to treat guest workers as little more than slaves. Which is why he voted against it.

[Live and Learn]

5. Exactly, where we come in. Setting the record straight for those easily manipulated.

Not letting them dictate Bernie's record and platforms but giving them the truth about both candidates records and platforms. Benie wins hands down every time we do it.

[tokenlib]

6. Castro is auditioning for the VP attack dog role..

...practicing record distortion.

[berniepdx420]

7. uhg.... No Clinton third term

[cascadiance]

8. Clinton should be answering why she supports slavery like guest labor programs in immigration bills!

Bernie's already been asked the question on "why he doesn't support immigration bills" at least TWICE! It was also a question in the first debate, which he also explained PROPERLY his admirable rejection of legalizing slavery conditions in this country that also screw Americans out of real jobs and wouldn't compromise that the way so many other Democrats have.

CLINTON should be the one that they finally break an EIGHT YEAR silence of hers on whether she still supports such guest worker programs that she's shown back in 2007 she supported by her own comments and her votes for immigration bills with these NON-IMMIGRANT H-1B and other guest worker program riders in them. They should ask HER whether SHE supports these what Bernie describes as slave labor condition guest worker programs and to defend her views on these programs!

All of these others that try to label Bernie as "anti-immigration" for not having a clean bill he could support voting for to vote FOR immigration that he fully supports, shouldn't flinch when we respond in kind by characterizing in equal style their feelings about these bills as reflecting their wanting to support slave labor for foreign workers!