In a live taped interview in Minnesota, Sanders said he would reform the current immigration system, but refused to say he would abolish ICE. He stated specifically that we need to protect our borders. What stood out to me is rather than take this opportunity to say that he opposes concentration camps and putting infants in cages, he used the interview to mimic the conservative language against open borders and the state his support for strong protection.
Crann continued to press the Vermont senator, asking if he sees “a valid purpose for an agency in the federal government like ICE.”
“The first question you asked, do I believe in open borders? No, I do not,” Sanders responded. “So you need to have protection of our borders and you need people to do that.”
This, to me, was reminiscent of when he used conservative language to talk about a women's right to choose during his Fox News promotional special.This, as we recall, gave an opening for Trump to talk about doctors executing babies.
It is important to note that we do not have open borders, and no one other than Trump and other white supremacists are talking about open borders. It is like taking about quotas, or Willie Horton, or there being too many black people working at the post office. It is a dog whistle, a racist’s attempt to pretend they are not racists.
We can protect out borders without ICE. We need to have a humane system where we have security, but people who are looking to immigrate and asylum are treated with respect. We cannot put brown skinned girls in jail just because we are afraid of their effect on demographics Remember that DHS was created by a man whose father won POTUS by implying that all black people were murders and could not be rehabilitated.
So we don’t need concentration camps, we don’t need baby cages. What we need are more people to process application, more facilities to adequately house those who come to our borders for help. In short, some basic hospitality. We can certainly afford it given that we could build welcome centers instead of walls. Welcome centers that are not the conservative, and evidently, Sanders fantasy of open borders, but welcome centers that say we can’t take everyone, but we are not going to close up shop just because we are afraid that the white majority is diminishing.
And we can enforce labor laws without scary raids. We can focus on employers who are exploiting workers rather than workers who are doing an honest days work. Frankly, I grew up in a state and in a time when anyone who was willing to do a days work was welcome and in some ways more valuable than someone who just expected to be given a paycheck for sitting around doing nothing. I would think that after several employers are sent to jail, we would see movement on laws that provide all workers, undocumented or not, equal protection and undocumented workers a reasonable path to documentation, in much the same way that we provide students a path to documentation, or in Texas young people who spent all four years in a Texas high school an opportunity to receive scholarships.
Of course, I am sure some will talk about the need to protect ourselves from terrorists, but as even the most conservative person around here now has to admit, Eric Rudolph and Lanza did not immigrate from Central America, were not part of MS-13, but were simply good old American boys.