Cesar Vargas - Prominent Dreamer Joins Bernie Sanders Campaign

[Luminous Animal]

7. I do believe you've got that backwards.

Dylan Matthews: In 2007, you had some concerns about the immigration bill being weighed by the Senate, and voted against it. Now that the new Gang of Eight bill is out of committee, what do you make of it?

Sen. Bernie Sanders: Thanks for calling. Let me just say this. I'm a strong supporter of immigration reform, and of the need to provide a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants. I very strongly support the DREAM Act, and will continue to strongly support it. I very strongly believe, as someone who knows what's going on in the dairy industry in Vermont, that there's no question we need to create a status for immigrant workers in agriculture, and I think the committee is making good progress there.

My concerns are in regards to where we stand in terms of guest workers programs, made worse by amendments offered by Senator Hatch. What I do not support is, under the guise of immigrant reform, a process pushed by large corporations which results in more unemployment and lower wages for American workers.

Southern Poverty Law Conference - Close to Slavery: Guestworker Programs in the United States

https://www.splcenter.org/20130218/close-slavery-guestworker-programs-united-states

Under the current H-2 program overseen by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), employers brought about 106,000 guestworkers into this country in 2011 — approximately 55,000 for agricultural work and another 51,000 for jobs in forestry, seafood processing, landscaping, construction and other non-agricultural industries.

But far from being treated like “guests,” these workers are systematically exploited and abused. Unlike U.S. citizens, guestworkers do not enjoy the most fundamental protection of a competitive labor market — the ability to change jobs if they are mistreated. Instead, they are bound to the employers who “import” them. If guestworkers complain about abuses, they face deportation, blacklisting or other retaliation.

Bound to a single employer and without access to legal resources, guestworkers are routinely:

Cheated out of wages

Forced to mortgage their futures to obtain low-wage, temporary jobs

Held virtually captive by employers or labor brokers who seize their documents

Subjected to human trafficking and debt servitude

Forced to live in squalid conditions

Denied medical benefits for on-the-job injuries.