Los Angeles Times
By Evan Halper
July 13, 2015
Sen.
Bernie Sanders may be popular on college campuses and in liberal
coastal cities, but the leading challenger to Hillary Rodham Clinton's
bid for the Democratic nomination
is still struggling to gain a foothold among the Latino voters who play
a crucial part in the contest.
On Monday, the Vermont senator and self-described democratic socialist traveled to the heartland in an effort to change that.
Some
400 convention-goers at the National Council of La Raza’s annual
meeting in Kansas City packed a room to hear Sanders talk about his own
experience as the child of
immigrants, take some shots at Donald Trump and lay out his agenda.
His
policies for boosting the quality of life of undocumented workers and
other struggling newcomers to the country put him to the left of
Clinton. She was also scheduled
to speak at the event, as was former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley,
whose long shot bid for the nomination has been overshadowed recently by
the surge in support for Sanders.
“I
know something about immigration,” Sanders told the audience here. “My
dad came to this country from Poland at the age of 17 without a nickel
in his pocket, without
much of an education.”
Sanders
talked about members of his family who perished in the Holocaust and
the hard work of his parents which enabled him to go to college. He
invoked the pope and Martin
Luther King Jr. in explaining his abhorrence of racism.
“We
are making progress in this country, and there will be no turning
back,” he said. “Let me be clear in stating that no one, not Donald
Trump, not anyone else, will
be successful in dividing us based on race or our country of origin.”
He
talked about his own activism on behalf of undocumented workers and
presented an agenda for immigration reform “so people can have the
protection of law and participate
fully and openly in American society.”
Some
of the policies Sanders proposed are more aggressive than Clinton’s.
Unlike the front runner, who prefers to lay out her plans at a level of
generality, Sanders does
not avoid boring into details and acknowledging the price tag of some
of the programs on his agenda.
In
Monday's speech, he proposed expanding the Obama administration's
executive action on immigration that permits people brought to the
country illegally as minors, so-called
Dreamers, to remain in the United States. Under his proposal, which is
similar to Clinton's, the parents of Dreamers would also be eligible. He
also repudiated provisions in the immigration reform legislation passed
by the Senate in 2013 that called for tougher
border enforcement, which Clinton has not done as specifically.
His pitch was embraced warmly by the crowd here. Despite that reception, Sanders has a steep hill to climb.
Clinton
has long been popular among Latino voters. Latinos supported her by a
ratio of nearly 2 to 1 over Sen. Barack Obama in the 2008 primaries. She
has built a deep
network of ties with leaders in the Latino community over many years,
and in the current campaign she began focusing on issues of concern to
Latino voters – immigration, in particular – immediately after
announcing her run.
The
Clinton campaign also has a Latino outreach network that is vast and
experienced, with multiple ties to Latino leaders on Capitol Hill, in
labor unions and in local
communities.
One of the big questions for the Sanders campaign is whether he will be able to compete with that in a meaningful way.
Sanders,
so far, has emphasized gaining traction in the early voting states of
New Hampshire and Iowa, where voters are overwhelmingly white. His
message has been focused
on them.
“Clinton
has a following and is beloved in [the Latino] community,” said
Democratic strategist Joe Trippi. “The more Sanders gets drawn into
having to play in the early
states, the more he is not building a bridge” to Latinos.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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