Judging from his diverging comments to English and Spanish-language media outlets, when it comes to immigration Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders seems increasingly prone to speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
During a recent interview with Univision and Fusion anchor Jorge Ramos, the surging socialist contender for the Democratic presidential nomination was goaded by Ramos into saying immigrants do not lower wages or take away American jobs.
JORGE RAMOS, ANCHOR: ..the suggestion is that immigrants would lower wages and take jobs away from Americans. And that is wrong.
BERNIE SANDERS: Yes, I know. But that was the question to which I was responding. Some journalist asked about open borders. Is it a good thing? No. The answer is no. Open borders are not a good thing.
JORGE RAMOS: Now immigrants, do immigrants lower wages? Are immigrants creating a bad impact?
BERNIE SANDERS: No
However, Sanders is on record as recently as two years ago as saying that “it makes no sense to me to have an immigration bill which, over a period of years, would bring millions of ‘guest workers’ into this country who are prepared to work for lower wages than American workers.”
More recently, Sanders has also made additional comments specifically tying porous borders to wage stagnation.
When speaking with Ramos, however, Sanders said “we have to be very careful about this” to which Ramos agreed, with the enabling response “yes, we have to.”
Sanders was in such caving mode with Ramos that, despite denouncing in principle the concept of open borders, he refused to dismiss outright the possibility of “the free flowing of workers between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico” as Ramos put it.
“I would consider anything,” Sanders told Ramos, in patently obvious pandering mode. “It depends on the state of the economy,” was all he could demure. “I don’t want to make any specific commitments now.”
The original English transcript of the referenced exchange on Fusion appears below.
Univision and Fusion News Interview with Bernie Sanders 7/31/2015
JORGE RAMOS, ANCHOR: You were recently asked about open borders. And you said it was a right-wing idea, that it would make everybody poor in America. But one article said that you sounded like Donald Trump.
BERNIE SANDERS: That’s, you know, this is…
JORGE RAMOS: But that suggestion that, immigrants would take jobs from Americans.
BERNIE SANDERS: No, no, no. We have to be very careful about this one.
JORGE RAMOS: Yes, we have to.
BERNIE SANDERS: My father was an immigrant. I believe absolutely in a comprehensive immigration reform. I think we have to bring 11 million undocumented people out of the shadows. But do I believe, does any member of Congress believe, does any Presidential candidate believe, that you simply open the borders, and you have millions of people who are unskilled coming into this country. Does anybody believe that?
JORGE RAMOS: No candidate wants open borders, but the suggestion that immigrants will lower wages and take away American jobs is wrong. You know it’s wrong.
BERNIE SANDERS: Yes, I know. But that was the question that I was responding to. Some journalist-- what about open borders? This is not a good thing. The answer is no. Open borders is not a good thing.
JORGE RAMOS: How about immigrants, do immigrants lower wages? Are immigrants creating a bad impact on American borders?
BERNIE SANDERS: No, what we have right now – here’s the concern that I have: for example, in terms of undocumented workers… I went to Immokalee, Florida; you know what takes place in Immokalee, Florida? That’s where the tomato workers are. I stood with the undocumented tomato workers, held a hearing in Washington D.C. to demand decent wages and decent working conditions. And we had some success. We've made some improvements. If we did not have undocumented workers today in America, do you know what would happen? Probably a large part of the agriculture sector of America would collapse and other parts of the economy would collapse. The job right now, what our function is, is to provide legal status for undocumented workers as quickly as we can and move toward a path toward citizenship. That is what we have to do. On the other hand, when you have 36 percent of Hispanic high school graduates who are unemployed, 51 percent of African-American kids who are unemployed, do I think it’s a good idea to open the border and bring in unskilled workers? No, I don’t.
JORGE RAMOS: As a Democratic socialist would you support the idea of an immigration agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico similar to the one the Europeans have, with no visas, with the European community?
BERNIE SANDERS: That is something I would have to look at. I can’t give you an answer right now.
JORGE RAMOS: So you would consider the possibility of…
BERNIE SANDERS: I would consider anything. But this is what I will consider and what I will tell you. That one of the reasons we have seen many people from the South come over the border is because of NAFTA. NAFTA, which I voted against by the way, was terrible in terms of what it did to small farms in Mexico, driving people off of the farms into the cities and eventually into America. But the whole issue of immigration, how we effectively deal with it, how many immigrants we should have coming into this country. Again, my dad was an immigrant. I believe in immigration. Immigration makes America stronger. This is an issue that needs to be thoroughly discussed.
JORGE RAMOS: So you would consider the possibility of the free flowing of workers between Canada, U.S. and Mexico?
BERNIE SANDERS: I will look at all ideas with regard to immigration. It depends on the state of the economy. I don’t want to make any specific commitments now.
