#sander 2020

Sanders has repeatedly used rhetoric that says guest workers and H-1B visas reduced wages for American workers and took jobs away from Americans.

In 2007, Sanders said, “Instead of paying better wages and benefits, they want to import cheaper workers.”

In 2007, a Sanders press release stated, “At a time when the middle class is shrinking, poverty is increasing and millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages it makes no sense to me to have an immigration bill which, over a period of years, would bring millions of ‘guest workers' into this country who are prepared to work for lower wages than American workers.”

In 2007, Sanders said, “there are those in this Chamber and across the country who are very concerned that in many instances the H-1B program is being used not to supplement American high-tech workers when they might be needed but instead is being used to replace them with foreign workers who are willing to work for substantially lower wages.”

In 2013, a Sanders press release stated, “One of the areas I have serious concerns about and want to see improved as the bill progresses is the huge increase in guest worker programs. At a time when unemployment remains extremely high, these programs bring hundreds of thousands of skilled and unskilled workers into our economy making it harder for U.S. citizens to find jobs.”

In 2013, Sanders said, “At a time when nearly 14 percent of the American people do not have a full-time job, at a time when the middle class continues to disappear, and at a time when tens of millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages, it makes no sense to me that the immigration reform bill includes a massive increase in temporary guest worker programs that will allow large corporations to import and bring into this country hundreds of thousands of temporary blue-collar and white-collar guest workers from overseas. That makes no sense to me.”

In 2013, Sanders said of guest worker programs, “this is a massive effort to attract cheap labor, a great disservice to American workers.”

In 2015, Sanders said, “There is a reason why Wall Street and all of corporate America likes immigration reform. And it is not that they are staying up nights worrying about undocumented workers in this country. What I think they are interested in is seeing a process by which we can bring low-wage labor of all levels into this country to depress wages in America, and I strongly disagree with that.”

In 2015, Sanders said, “So to my view is of course we need a path toward citizenship for undocumented workers, of course we should not be dividing up families, of course I support the DREAM Act, but I do worry that corporate America and the big money interests of course want to bring cheap labor into this country in guest worker programs and continue the race to the bottom, something which is devastating to this country and forcing millions of people in this country to work longer hours for low wages.”

Sanders’s rhetoric on immigration reform has been criticized. FWD.us president: “It’s troubling – because at a high level, he accepts the utterly false premise that our economy is zero-sum, and putting forward the totally-debunked notion that immigrants coming to the U.S. are taking jobs and hurting Americans – specifically young people, Latinos, and AfricanAmericans.” Dylan Matthews: So I was disappointed, if not surprised, at the visceral horror with which Bernie Sanders reacted to the idea [“open borders”] when interviewed by my colleague Ezra Klein.”