Sanders: Let’s stand up to Wall Street, not beat up on immigrants

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said in Iowa that he is disappointed by how the 2016 presidential field is treating illegal immigrants.

“I think they are being used as a punching bag and I resent that,” Sanders told The Des Moines Register during a taped interview with its editorial board.

{mosads}“We can have differences of opinion on how we proceed with immigration and how we treat undocumented people,” he said. “But let’s not demagogue the issue.”

“Let’s have the courage to actually stand up to the people who really have power in this country — the Wall Street people and the corporate people, and not just beat up on people without legal status,” added Sanders, a 2016 Democratic presidential candidate.

Without naming names, Sanders argued that candidates seeking the White House have been engaging in “racist” rhetoric against illegal immigrants.

“In the year 2015, candidates for president of the United States of America should not be making racist remarks about people coming from Latin America and from Mexico,” he said. “I would have hoped that we had gone beyond that.”

“If tomorrow every person who is undocumented left this country, our agricultural system would likely collapse, as well as many other aspects of our economy,” Sanders said. “It was not undocumented people in this country whose greed and recklessness drove us into economic downturn.”

Illegal immigration has been pushed to the forefront of the presidential race by Donald Trump, whose sharp rhetoric has drawn criticism but won plaudits on the right.

Trump is currently the front-runner for the GOP’s 2016 presidential nomination, according to the latest RealClearPolitics average of U.S. surveys.

The average lists the New York business mogul as leading the Republican field with 27.2 percent in voter support.