How Bernie Sanders would reverse the outcome of the Mexican–American War within a single year

On Bernie Sanders' official 2020 campaign website, under “Issues”, an immigration reform platform paper is posted, under the title A Welcoming and Safe America for All.

This post extracts the key features of his immigration reform platform and uses them to demonstrate how within the first year of a Bernie Sanders presidency, the U.S. would lose de-facto sovereignty over territory gained in the Mexican–American War.

The review will follow this pattern:

Bernie Sanders' immigration platform.

The disastrous implications of that policy for the United States as we know it.

Bernie Sanders pledges to accomplish the following on Day One :

Put a moratorium on deportations.

This, in combination with other pledges quoted below, would amount to placing flashing “Welcome Mexico and Central America” signs along the entire southwest border.

Stop all border wall construction and instead rely on cost-effective and innovative methods to counter the threats of drug importation and human trafficking.

Meaning that efforts to stop illegal immigration would be abandoned. Illegal immigration is not considered a problem worth fighting.

Instruct the Department Of Justice to drop any litigation or funding restrictions relating to sanctuary cities.

The purpose of sanctuary cities is to provide a sanctuary for illegal aliens, protecting them from enforcement of federal immigration laws. The more “safe spaces” are made available to them, the more will come.

End President Trump’s “Remain in Mexico,” metering, and “Safe Third Country” policies and allow asylum seekers to make their claims in the U.S.

Asylum is lawfully offered to persons seeking protection from persecution or fear due to their belonging to various minority groups. Under the derelict Obama administration, this definition was expanded to cover domestic violence and gang crime, and the number of “credible fear” asylum claims rose by 2,000 percent. Coverage by major news outlets of immigration issues is sufficient to demonstrate that essentially every Central American migrant entering the U.S. illegally would, under relaxed asylum rules, claim they are fleeing gang violence, and that these claims would be accepted as a factual by a Sanders administration.

End for-profit detention and connect detainees with sponsors and supports.

Management of most ICE detention facilities is contracted out to private companies. Socialists and progressives object to allowing to people to profit from keeping other people in prison. What would these contractor-operated detention facilities be replaced with, in a Sanders administration? Nothing. Illegal aliens currently detained in ICE facilities would be “connected with sponsors and supports”. This would essentially remove any existing deterrent to illegal immigration. A fitting slogan for the Bernie Sanders for President campaign would be “Learn Spanish. You'll need it.”

Reverse DOJ guidance to deny asylum claims on the basis of fleeing domestic or gang violence.

The disastrous implications of this proposal when combined with the pledge to cancel “Remain in Mexico” procedures were covered above.

Rescind any proposed rules that deny public housing to families with an undocumented member.

Adding to the substantial existing economic incentive for people from relatively poor regions to come and claim they're seeking asylum.

Rescind President Trump’s “public charge” rule to ensure that aliens do not have to fear endangering their immigration status in order to access basic supports and services.

Providing further incentive for economic migrants.

The following key features of the Sanders immigration platform are admittedly dependent on approval by Congress and therefore not promised on “Day One”:

Amnesty for all illegal aliens; this is included under the header “A Swift, Fair Pathway to Citizenship”

So that even more and more people would illegally immigrate, confident that they also would be rewarded with American citizenship. Why should they be treated any differently from the ones before them?

The decriminalization of illegal immigration.

This would be accomplished by: 1) Repealing 8 U.S. Code § 1325, which makes the first attempt to unlawfully enter the U.S. a misdemeanor and subsequent attempts a felony, and 2) Repealing the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, which strengthened penalties for immigration violations, at the border and in the nation's interior.

Decriminalization by-definition removes deterrents, opening the door to more and more illegal immigration.

The demolition of federal immigration law enforcement agencies; this is included under the header “Restructure the Department of Homeland Security”.

Bernie Sanders complains that President Trump has turned Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) into a renegade detention and deportation force . He doesn't want the unified Department of Homeland Security to be responsible for immigration law enforcement any longer, because Immigration is not a threat to national security.

If he was challenged on the renegade description and asked to explain in what way those agencies are renegade , the only answer he could give is that they are in fact detaining and deporting people for civil immigration violations. There is no other answer or explanation.

Under an Executive Branch managed by Bernie Sanders, CBP and ICE would be broken up entirely. Whatever remained of deportation, enforcement, border and investigatory authority would be returned to the Department of Justice, which is where they were before the Department of Homeland Security was created in response to the 9/11 attacks.

The result would be immigration anarchy, by-design.