Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders said Monday that as president, he would stop deporting undocumented immigrants who have lived in the United States for at least five years — a group that makes up 88 percent of the more than 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the country.
The Vermont senator made the announcement during a campaign event in Las Vegas, Nevada, saying that he would go further than nearly every other presidential candidate and further than President Obama has with his executive actions. In addition to granting deportation relief to immigrants who have lived in the country for more than five years, he said he’d provide administrative relief to the parents and of DREAMers, citizens and legal permanent residents.
“As president, passing a legislative solution to our broken immigration system will be a top priority,” Sanders said at the event co-hosted by the Fair Immigration Reform Network and The Nation. “But, let me be clear. I will not wait around for Congress to act. Instead, beginning in the first 100 days of my administration, I will work to take extensive executive action to accomplish what Congress has failed to do and to build upon President Obama’s executive orders.”
Sanders’ proposal includes the measures from the 2013 Senate immigration reform legislation that failed in the Republican-controlled House. But instead of just pushing for legislation, he said he would take executive action to grant deportation of relief to the millions of undocumented immigrants who have lived in the United States long-term or who have children who have qualified for deportation relief.
The announcement makes Sanders one of the first presidential candidates to call for extending protections to undocumented immigrants based on the amount of time they’ve lived in the country. According to a recent study by the Center for American Progress, the majority of the country’s 11.3 million undocumented immigrants are long-term residents. As of last year, 62 percent of undocumented immigrants had been living in the United States for 10 years or longer, and a full 88 percent have been living in the United States for five years or longer.
In the speech, part of a campaign swing through the Vegas area, Sanders also called for dismantling private detention centers and offering asylum to victims of domestic violence and minors who are fleeing dangerous circumstances in Latin America, according to his campaign.