Bernie Sanders' changing position on immigration explained

While Bernie is probably out of politics beyond his seat in Vermont I still found this article interesting nonetheless.

Sanders broke with prominent Democrats to oppose a key comprehensive immigration reform bill in 2007 that would have provided a path to citizenship for millions of unauthorized immigrants living in the US. He opposed measures to increase the number of guest workers and offer green cards to citizens of countries with low levels of immigration. And he once voted for an amendment supporting a group of vigilantes that sought to take immigration enforcement into their own hands along the border (though he has since disavowed the group.)

Whether immigrants actually drive down wages for American workers, or put them out of jobs entirely, is a question that continues to divide economists. But Sanders’s public statements and voting records over his nearly three-decade career in Congress suggest he thinks they do — a belief historically shared by American labor groups but an uneasy fit with a modern Democratic Party positioning itself against President Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Compared to Joe Biden, who has been forced to defend the record-high deportations that occurred while he was vice president, Sanders hasn’t faced much scrutiny over his immigration record this election cycle. His warnings against “open borders,” which he calls a “Koch brothers proposal”,drew some criticism last April, and the New York Times’s Binyamin Appelbaum pressed him on his ideas about how immigration affects wages in January, but it’s nothing like what he faced in 2016.

As Sanders runs for president for a second time, though, his views have evolved to integrate his old-school labor protectionism with a more diverse and pro-immigration Democratic Party. And he’s now embracing the most progressive immigration proposals of the field, including placing a moratorium on deportations (with some exceptions) and decriminalizing the act of crossing the border without authorization.

He still believes that immigrants who aren’t paid a living wage will drive down wages overall. But he no longer suggests immigrant workers and American-born ones are pitted against each other. Instead, he’s focusing on what the two groups have in common: Both need protection from abusive employers and big business, higher wages, better health care, and access to higher education.

“Our border is very porous,” he said during a press event at the time. “And I think at a time when the middle class is shrinking, the last thing we need is to bring over in a period of years, millions of people into this country who are prepared to lower wages for American workers.”

Bernie says build the wall and deport the illegal aliens /s

More seriously though, I wonder if backpedaling on this is the main reason for his growth in hispanic support?

Related declaration:

"There is no question we need to strengthen our borders to protect national security and prevent illegal immigration," Senator Bernie Sanders said. "We must hold employers accountable, and establish a path to citizenship for 12 million people already in the United States. But at a time when the middle class is shrinking, I must oppose bringing in hundreds of thousands more workers into the United States who would lower wages and hurt American workers."