Washington, D.C. – Presidential hopeful Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) announced his plan to tackle immigration, and it sounds expensive and dangerous.
Most notably, the socialist candidate claims he will end all of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies on his first day in office. We struggle to see how this will help Sanders. After all, Trump won office while taking a hard stance on illegal immigration.
So what does Sanders want to do on his first day?
Sanders wants to place a moratorium on deportations, stop construction of what he calls the “racist and ineffective wall,” end the travel ban that is in place to ensure proper security on flights to the U.S. from countries with high rates of terrorist activity, and provide public housing and welfare for illegal aliens.
Sanders has other crazy plans, as well. He wants Congress to provide a path to citizenship to the approximate 11 million illegal aliens living in the United States. Interestingly, 11 million is a very low-end estimate. The Department of Homeland Security estimated more than Sanders almost five years ago.
An estimated 12.0 million illegal aliens were living in the
United States on January 1, 2015, compared to an estimated 11.6 million on January 1, 2010.
A 2018 Yale/MIT study estimated an astounding 22 million illegal aliens live in the United States. Obviously, Sanders is attempting to make his open borders plan more palatable for voters who supported Trump in 2016.
In addition, Sanders wants to abolish both the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agencies. The agencies responsible for protecting our border, immigrants (legal and illegal), and American citizens. Sanders claims their current responsibilities will be distributed to the Department of Justice, Treasury Department, and State Department.
Sanders also wants to encourage sanctuary policies and refocus border security to points of entry.
Points of entry work much better when something like say, a wall, forces the majority of people crossing a border to use them. But on day one, Sanders wants to end the construction of new sections of the border wall. This is despite increased border arrests supporting the fact that new sections of the border wall are helping CBP control the flow of illegal immigration.
This is not the kind of comprehensive change to immigration policy that will help the United States.
Basically, Sanders’ plans to make communities less safe.