'We Must Not Allow' Legal Status Of 'Dreamers' To Go Unresolved, Sen. Bernie Sanders Says

Here & Now's Jeremy Hobson speaks with Sen. Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders), I-Vt., about immigration policy, President Trump's budget proposal and the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on "worldwide threats" Tuesday.

This segment aired on February 13, 2018. Audio will be available soon.

Excerpt:

Interview Highlights

On whether he'd support an immigration plan that encompasses President Trump's "four pillars" for immigration

"No. I think what the American people are very clear about — close to 90 percent — is they want to make sure that the 'Dreamers' in this country get legal status and they get a path toward citizenship. And, by the way, most Americans do not think it makes a whole lot of sense to be spending billions of dollars on a wall. So, first thought, I think we should do what the American people want us to do. We have a few days, just a few days, to deal with this great moral crisis. And, in my view, what we should be doing is focusing on two issues: No. 1, a path toward citizenship and providing legal status for the 1.8 million people who are eligible for DACA. And, No. 2, we should improve border security, and we can do that in a more cost-effective way than by spending billions on a wall that we really don't need."

On where members of Congress stand

"What I can tell you is there is a strong majority of members here in the Senate — I'm guessing 56, 57 members, Democrats, all, and some Republicans — who think that the focus should be on legal status for the 'Dreamers' and a path toward citizenship, and border security, not getting into other areas. I hope that's where we will go. And I can tell you also that there is a majority in the House who support that. And I would very much appreciate [House] Speaker [Paul] Ryan allowing the House to have a vote on what the members want.

On whether the status of "Dreamers" will be resolved before March

"I certainly hope so. Let me be very clear: This, to me, is a profound moral issue, because if we are not successful, what would happen is that 800,000 young people who have spent their entire lives in this country, who know no other country other than the United States, could be subject to deportation. And that would be just an absolute outrage that we must not allow to happen."

On Trump's budget proposal, and whether Americans should be worried about cuts to Medicare

"Of course they should. And they should be worried that you have an administration that worked overtime to provide massive tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations. And you have a president who, when he ran for office, told the American people he wasn't going to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Well, it turns out that he is proposing over a trillion dollar cuts to Medicaid, hundreds of billions of dollars [in] cuts to Medicare and cuts to the disability program within Social Security. Our job is to make sure that those cuts do not happen. You've got people in this country who are struggling every day to pay their health care costs, which are rising, and we do not need to be throwing millions of people off of the health insurance they have or to be making it more difficult for people on Medicare to get the health care they need."

http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2018/02/13/bernie-sanders-immigration