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In this recent interview Bernie Sanders talks about some aspects of the immigration issue in terms that are commonly associated with opponents of unauthorized immigration:
“You know what youth unemployment is in the United States of America today? If you’re a white high school graduate, it’s 33 percent, Hispanic 36 percent, African American 51 percent. You think we should open the borders and bring in a lot of low-wage workers, or do you think maybe we should try to get jobs for those kids?”
Groups sympathetic to the overall appeal of Senator Sanders’ presidential run are surprised at his position, such as this leader of a young technology community:
“It’s troubling – because at a high level, he accepts the utterly false premise that our economy is zero-sum, and putting forward the totally-debunked notion that immigrants coming to the U.S. are taking jobs and hurting Americans – specifically young people, Latinos, and African-Americans.”
Although he supports a pathway to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants here now, his views have disappointed many who view immigration as a movement of people seeking refuge and a chance to make a decent living, and that the threat of immigration was used as an excuse to divert the public from the negative consequences of Free Trade agreements. NAFTA is considered to have negatively impacted the middle classes wage levels of both the USA and Mexico. Some of the reasons that American jobs disappeared, and labor was badly hurt , in the recent economic recession were the outsourcing and competition against lower wages in other countries.
The interviewer implies that trade agreements tend to promote open border policies and higher immigration levels, and Sanders says the following:
“Open borders? No, that’s a Koch brothers proposal.
It would make everybody in America poorer —you’re doing away with the concept of a nation state, and I don’t think there’s any country in the world that believes in that. If you believe in a nation state or in a country called the United States or UK or Denmark or any other country, you have an obligation in my view to do everything we can to help poor people. What right-wing people in this country would love is an open-border policy. Bring in all kinds of people, work for $2 or $3 an hour, that would be great for them. I don’t believe in that. I think we have to raise wages in this country, I think we have to do everything we can to create millions of jobs.”
Sanders is being criticized as nationalistic, playing to nativist feelings. This critic points out the European Union as a success of open borders:
“…the European Union – the biggest economy in the world – allows its 400 million citizens the freedom of movement between 26 European countries. Citizens travel freely without asking permission or filling out mountains of paperwork. The people of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands and others weren’t lowering their standard of living when they adopted the Schengen agreement. Rather, they realized the free movement of people spurs economic growth.”
Open borders is often identified with libertarian politics, although our local friends have not said much on this issue. Sanders throughout the years has shown a solid understanding of the multiple causes of immigration and the need to address them:
” What you do is understand there’s been a huge redistribution of wealth in the last 30 years from the middle class to the top tenth of 1 percent. The other thing that you understand globally is a horrendous imbalance in terms of wealth in the world. As I mentioned earlier, the top 1 percent will own more than the bottom 99 percent in a year or so. That’s absurd. That takes you to programs like the IMF and so forth and so on.
“But I think what we need to be doing as a global economy is making sure that people in poor countries have decent-paying jobs, have education, have health care, have nutrition for their people. That is a moral responsibility, but you don’t do that, as some would suggest, by lowering the standard of American workers, which has already gone down very significantly.”
The austerity problem in Greece, and in a minor scale so far in Spain, is an indication that certain open borders models do not necessarily benefit the majority of the population. The challenge to Sander’s views is to balance the policies maintaining the standard of workers in the USA without fomenting a xenophobic attitude.
Once a comprehensive immigration reform including a path to citizenship is enacted, the debate will continue regarding the employment-based immigration, how many and on what terms will immigrants be accepted.
In the meantime in the words of a commenter from another publication :
“Why is this migration taking place? It’s not taking place because suddenly a bunch of people from Guatemala decide they want to take an eco-tour of the strawberry fields in the San Joaquin valley. It’s because their communities are being destroyed through the theft of the land. If you don’t want these people moving up here then don’t steal those people’s lands, pretty simple solution”
Update : Sanders elaborates on his Open Borders statement in this interview with Jorge Ramos.
*Bernie will be at the Sports Arena on Monday night. $25 dollar parking though. But his T-Shirts and Bumper Stickers are great.
The parking garage is available for $25, but “Members of the public are encouraged to use public transportation or carpool. For public transportation: Exit the Metro Expo Line at the Expo Park/USC Station. The Sports Arena is located approximately 0.3 miles walking distance from the station, Other great options: Ride Amtrak or Metrolink to Union Station located in downtown Los Angeles, and transfer to the Metro lines that lead to the California Science Center.”