Bernie Sanders campaign hires leading undocumented activist Cesar Vargas,

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...b0ec0a3893defa


Prominent Dreamer Joins Bernie Sanders Campaign



-- Cesar Vargas, a leading undocumented activist, joined Sen. Bernie Sanders' campaign on Thursday, Vargas' advocacy group announced -- another sign the senator's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination is ramping up its efforts on immigration and the Latino vote.

Vargas is a co-founder of the Dream Action Coalition, which is led by young undocumented immigrants, or Dreamers. The group has been heavily critical of Republicans on immigration, but has also chastised President Barack Obama over deportations and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, one of Sanders' opponents, over donations from private prison lobbyists.

Dream Action Coalition has applauded Sanders for his efforts to ban government contracts for private prison companies, which also operate many immigrant detention centers.

Neither the Sanders campaign nor Vargas responded to a request for comment. Dream Action Coalition announced the move in a tweet.



The organization did not endorse Sanders (I-Vt.) but praised him in statements Thursday. Dream Action Coalition co-director Carlos Vargas said Sanders "is a strong choice: he is great on immigration in general, stood with us on the border children and he wants to get the Corrections Corporation of America, GEO Group and other corporations out of politics," referring to two major private prison companies.

"At the same time that Bernie is trying to chase them out of DC, Hillary is accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from GEO and CCA's registered lobbyists," he continued. "[O]ne day they will call in several hundred thousand dollars worth of favors and skew the discussion on immigration reform to keep their detention facilities full."

Later Thursday, the Clinton campaign said it will no longer accept contributions from lobbyists or PACs of private prison companies, and will donate previous contributions from them to charity.

Clinton has also tapped a prominent Dreamer for her campaign. In May, she hired Lorella Praeli of the advocacy group United We Dream as Latino outreach director. Praeli was undocumented before obtaining a green card in 2012.

Sanders has said he is trying to increase his Latino outreach. An August Gallup poll found that only 25 percent of Latino voters were familiar with him, compared to 75 percent who were familiar with Clinton.

His campaign earlier this month appointed activist Arturo Carmona, who was executive director of Presente.org, as Latino outreach director.

"What we are trying very, very hard to do -- you are going to see us moving very aggressively in that area -- is introduce myself to the Latino community," Sanders said at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute's annual Public Policy Conference on Oct. 7. "I will fight for every vote I can get in the Latino community."

Cesar Vargas came to the U.S. from Mexico when he was five years old. He is undocumented but legally able to work under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, although he is unable to fulfill his dream of joining the military. In June, a New York appeals court ruled he is eligible to practice law, four years after he finished law school.



Feel the bern

Well, I hope that we'll see some actual push for reform from Sanders. I really don't want a second Obama, you know - shouting from the mountain that he'll pass immigration reform and mainly crickets for his 8 years in office.

He still voted against immigration reform in 2007. No token gestures will change that. When it was time to step up to the plate and put his money where his mouth is, he failed us no matter how he tries to spin it. He is a Rubio in sheep's clothing.

What about 2006 and the dream act in 2010? I mean 2007 act was so bad that I'd vote against it.

I'm going to go ahead and guess that the Dreamers who aged out of DACA would disagree with your assessment that the reform in 2007 was so terrible that it deserved to be voted against.

And they're very much entitled to their opinion, but the law was basically full of poison pills, which did a great job of both derailing it, and making any legalization via it extremely tedious.

Not sure what point you're trying to make, but the 2007 immigration bill had the entirety of the Dream Act within it in addition to the other guest worker provisions. If that bill would have passed -ie. all the Democrats would have voted for them along with the few Republicans who did (the bill failed by only 15 votes), I wouldn't even have found this website in 2011. None of us would be here because we'd either have a work permit and going to college or working towards our Dream Act given green cards, or we'd already be there. In 8 years of having a green card and two college degrees, who can ever guess how my life could have been, but I'm guessing it would have been much better and much less fear.

Bernard Sanders had a 1/15 role in denying me that life so excuse me for not jumping up and down for him on here. To borrow a quote from his people: Never Again.

Edit: If all Democrats would have voted for it, it would have still been 5 votes shy of the 60, but the point stands that Bernie was one of the ones who voted against it (Along with Barbara Boxer).