Bernie Sanders Wants to ‘Break Up’ ICE

Authored by nytimes.com and submitted by AlwaysTheNoob
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“The Trump administration’s treatment of immigration exclusively as a criminal and national security matter is inhumane, impractical and must end,” the Sanders campaign wrote. “As president, Bernie Sanders would make undocumented immigration a civil matter, and fundamentally reform the government agencies tasked with enforcing immigration law in a way that views immigration as a historically valued process that’s woven into our country’s fabric.”

Mr. Sanders, like his Democratic rivals who have articulated immigration proposals, said he would end President Trump’s policies restricting funding to so-called sanctuary cities, allow asylum seekers to stay in the United States rather than having them wait in Mexico, halt family separations at the southern border and stop efforts to build a wall there. He said he would seek to double funding for immigration judges, though his plan does not specify where those funds would come from.

He also said he would decriminalize unauthorized border crossings, making them a civil offense, an idea pushed by Julián Castro, the former housing secretary, in the first Democratic debate in June. Mr. Castro, who has released an extensive immigration plan of his own, tweeted Thursday that he was “happy to see @BernieSanders join me.”

A President Sanders would not need congressional approval for the raft of executive actions detailed in his immigration proposals. But he would need Congress to pass any plan to offer amnesty to undocumented immigrants. The most recent effort failed in 2013 when the Democratic-controlled Senate passed immigration legislation hammered out by the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” senators, but the Republican-held House did not vote on it.

zensins on December 2nd, 2019 at 02:50 UTC »

With recent revelations regarding sexual assault of thousands of immigrant children this is a less and less radical ideal, tbh. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/27/us/immigrant-children-sexual-abuse.html

suprmario on December 2nd, 2019 at 00:15 UTC »

ICE was created post-9/11, and is not necessary. Consolidate ICE with CBP and cut a bunch of extra bureaucracy. Make policy transparency and operational transparency legal mandates in order for the public to understand exactly how their tax dollars are being used in terms of Border and Immigration Enforcement, and make those that would use "duty" as an excuse for cruelty accountable for their actions.

cantflex on December 2nd, 2019 at 00:12 UTC »

Let's all remember that Bernie voted against creating ICE in the first place. On almost every issue, he's right all along, and it's the rest of the party that needs to be dragged kicking and screaming until they reach the right position