Ahead of Super Tuesday, United We Dream Action endorsed both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren for president. In a press release, the activist group notes that “UWDA is proud to endorse Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and a progressive vision that will get our community closer to liberation.”
United We Dream bills itself as the “largest immigrant youth-led community in the country.” Activists founded the organization in 2008 as a way to petition for greater benefits for illegal aliens. ThinkProgress notes that UWD’s founder Cristina Jimenez Moreta was influential in lobbying the Obama administration to create the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. UWD continues to advocate for the interests of illegal aliens through UWD Action, a grassroots lobbying organization which made the endorsement.
Most organizations only endorse one candidate and then encourage their members and supporters to vote for and campaign for that single candidate. That UWD Action would endorse two candidates is unique. The group’s leadership notes that both candidates “support the key provisions of the Free to Move, Free to Stay platform, such as: shutting down for-profit detention camps, shrinking the budgets for ICE & CBP, stopping and reviewing deportations within the first 100 days, issuing executive orders to protect immigrants, and supporting legislation that provides a pathway to citizenship without provisions that hurt immigrants.”
Super Tuesday left Elizabeth Warren with virtually nothing to show for her efforts. Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, remains a top contender in the Democratic nomination process right behind party favorite Joe Biden.
The group’s endorsement of Bernie Sanders is particularly intriguing. UWD notes that “our experience with the Clinton Administration and the Obama administration has taught us to not rely solely on the promises that candidates make on the campaign trail.” Sanders kicked off his 2020 campaign by promising to eliminate immigration enforcement agencies, pause all deportations, and legalize the 14.3 million illegal aliens in the United States. Yet Senator Sanders voted against the 2007 Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, the McCain-Kennedy mass amnesty bill. Speaking on the bill at the time, Sanders said “If poverty is increasing and if wages are going down, I don’t know why we need millions of people to be coming into this country as guest workers who will work for lower wages than American workers and drive wages down even lower than they are now.”
A few years ago, it was not unheard of for Democrats to support some kind of immigration restrictions or enforcement. Now, the leading candidates largely endorse mass amnesty for illegal aliens as a standard of their policy pitch to voters. With the field greatly narrowed, it will be interesting to see what path the eventual leader takes in an issue that is of great importance to many Americans.
