Eight of the more than 20 candidates for the Democratic presidential candidacy in 2020 outlined their ideas for a model of a country different from that of President Donald Trump, with opportunities and rights for more people, including the 11 million who live undocumented in the country. .
Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Eric Swalwell, Julian Castro, Beto O’Rourke, John Hickenlooper and Pete Buttigieg spoke today in Miami at a forum organized by the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO) and the Hispanic network Telemundo, in which the great absentee Joe Biden, who leads the polls.
All of them agreed to defend the need for a comprehensive immigration reform and to reject the inclusion of a question on citizenship in the Census 2020 that can make Latinos underrepresented demographically, which would mean, among other things. , less help for them.
Several announced that if the census is made with the question in question, because the Supreme Court does not force before withdrawing it, they will not doubt, if they arrive at the White House, in issuing executive orders or decrees so that they repeat until they have a “complete” account. “and” accurate “.
Senator Bernie Sanders was the only one who urged to fight already for the withdrawal of that question that, according to the mayor of South Bend (Indiana), Pete Buttigieg, has “a racial and political motivation”.
Congress has the ability to not approve funds for the census, he stressed. You have to tell them that “we are not going to put money for the census unless the segregationist language is eliminated,” stressed the senator from Vermont, the oldest candidate.
All the participants greeted the audience in Spanish and some dared to build some phrases in the language of Cervantes, obviously among these the only Latino, Julian Castro, of Mexican origin, and also O’Rourke, which provoked the laughter of the attendees to the forum when he used the term “asshole”.
The only one who did not mention Trump directly was the former Texan congressman, who gave as an example of what he wants for the country his own city, El Paso, which together Ciudad Juarez forms the “largest community in the hemisphere”, with three million people that, together, are more “than the sum of the parts that form it”.
The need for unity in a time of divisionism promoted by the Government was highlighted by the majority of the candidates for the Democratic candidacy, who also supported in their majority a rise in the minimum wage to at least $ 15 an hour and measures to alleviate the debts of university students.
Senator Amy Klobuchar, who like O’Rourke said climate change is the first item on her agenda, said Trump “tries to divide us every day” and appealed “to the sense of shared responsibility and prosperity” as an antidote.
It was the only one that mentioned former President Barack Obama, to say that the United States needs a leader that represents and helps the entire country, not just the richest.
In this regard, Elizabeth Warren, also a senator, said that the fundamental question one must ask is “for whom does the government work?” and if it is only for the richest 2%, as, as he said, the current administration does, “a future for all” is not achieved.
Warren said that it is not about punishing someone for being rich, but that their taxes help create opportunities, and was emphatic in the need to end the current system in which there are private companies whose profits grow if the number increases of detained immigrants, since they operate the centers where 73% of those awaiting deportation are detained.
For his part, Sanders defended a country in which access to health and education is a right, not a privilege, and said that his plan to create a universal health system will include the 11 million undocumented, to which the “demagogue” Trump has become the “culprits of all the problems”.
“Today I make a very simple promise: protect the undocumented, comprehensive immigration reform, restore the legal status of the 1.8 million young people in DACA (Obama’s program for immigrants who arrived in childhood.) Create a humanitarian policy in the border will be a priority issue on my agenda, “he said, warning that he will not do so in one or two years.
Former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper proposed immediately giving undocumented immigrants a ten-year visa with extensions that would allow them to work and visit their countries.
It is about “coming out of the shadows and having real lives,” said the only one of the participants in the forum who spoke of “socialism”, although to say that “it is not the solution”.
Julián Castro, for his part, promised to use his executive power to “immediately expand DACA” and to grant a Temporary Protection Statute (TPS) p
