sen. sanders: thank you so much for coming. and by the way, i am delighted to be here with the congressman from arizona. i think all of you know that raul has been, throughout his political life, one of the leaders in congress in the fight for immigrant justice, in the fight for racial justice, and the fight for economic justice, and social justice. thank you so much for what you have done for our country. [applause] let me say a few words and we will get the panel going. i am running for president because the truth is, given the many crises that we face as a nation, it is just too late for establishment politics and establishment economics. we need real change, today. [applause] and it is not credible to me that we could have candidates that take millions of dollars from wall street and other special interests and tell us that they will stand up to those special interests and create a government that will work for all of us. in terms of immigration issues and issues of particular concern, to the latino community, number one i want you all to know that i am the son of an immigrant. first-generation. [applause] my father came from poland at the age of 17 years old to escape poverty. he came to this country with no money. he came not speaking a word of english. but he became a proud american because he saw what the united states could do. what this country could do for his two sons. he never made much money, but he was a very proud american because of the opportunities this country gave him. where we are today, and i will go into this in greater length, in terms of immigration policy, everybody knows that the immigration system is totally broken. nobody debates that. before we get to immigration reform, i want to say that as a united states senator and president of the united states, i am going to do, and have done, everything i can to combat the bigotry and ignorance of donald trump and people like that. [applause] all of you know, all of you know, who know american history -- the struggle that this country has gone through for hundreds of years, the fight against discrimination -- we had to deal with slavery, the terrible deeds we did to the american native people. against italians, irish, jews, we had hoped especially after electing the first african-american president in our history that the blatant bigotry was behind us. but apparently it is not. and it is incumbent upon all of us to stand up to donald trump and tell him that his bigotry, his insults of the mexican and latino community, to the muslim community, two women, veterans, african-americans, this is not what this country is about and we will not accept it for one second. [applause] secondly, everybody knows that we have 11 million undocumented people in this country and what many of us know, everybody knows, that many of those people working today are being exploited. we will get into that issue for a little bit of length, but there are people in california today, undocumented people, who are being cheated of wages, they are being underpaid and overworked, and we know that they cannot stand up for their rights because they are undocumented. and that is why among many other reasons, together we will pass comprehensive immigration reform in a path toward citizenship. [applause] i was at, i do not know if any of you have been there, but i was at friendship park in san diego. there is a park located on the ocean. it is a beautiful area looking at the pacific ocean. on the other hand, it is a very tragic and sad location, because there is a fence there. and apparently on weekends they open up the fence and they allow people from both sides to come together. but the fence and screening is so tight that people cannot embrace each other. the only physical contact that a husband and wife or child and parent can have is literally sticking a pinkie to a tight screen. how tragic is that? to see husbands on one side, wives on the other side, moms on one side and children on the other side. the function of real immigration reform must be to unite families, not divide them. [applause] and that is why we will end the current ill-advised deportation policies. and if congress does not do with the american people want them to do. the majority of the american people want real immigration reform, if congress does not do that, then i will use all of the powers of the presidency through executive orders to do the best i can do. [applause] clearly, the preferable and long-term solution is comprehensive immigration reform. last point, the latino community is by and large a working-class community. and like the rest of the working-class, people are struggling to put bread on the table and to make ends meet. i believe that we have an economic agenda, not just immigration reform, but an economic agenda that makes sense and works for the latino community. it means, if you work 40 hours a week, you cannot be living in poverty. we are raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. [applause] and we make sure that women get equal pay for equal work. [applause] that we create millions of good paying jobs by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, our water systems, our waste water plant, our bridges, we can put 13 million people in this country back to work and make our roads and country safer. [applause] the united states is the only major country on earth that does not guarantee health care to all people as a right. i live 50 miles away from the canadian border in vermont, all of the people in california have health care as a right. if elected as president, we will fight for medicare for all, a health care system that guarantees health care for all people as a right. [applause] we have hundreds of thousands of bright young people in this country who cannot afford to go to college, and many others who are leaving school, $30,000, $50,000, $70,000 in debt. when we talk about public education, we should understand that that must mean making public colleges and universities tuition free. [applause] this is what i want to see. yes, sweetheart? ok. [applause] say, it is funny. i was just going to talk about that. i want to see the children of california and vermont and america, i want to see those kids who study hard and do well in school, i want to see those children know that if they study hard they will be able to get a college education regardless of the income of their family. [applause] one other point and then we will get on with the panel. i know that many of you are deeply concerned about our criminal justice system. you should be, it is a broken system. we have a broken immigration system and we have a broken criminal justice system. here are the facts, in this country today we have more people in jail than any other country on earth. you know that? we have 2.2 million people disproportionately african-american, latino, and native american. here is something else we have in this country. we have communities in our inner cities, african-american communities, latino communities, we have communities in rural america, where the youth unemployment rate is 30%-50%, that means you have kids that are 17 years of age and they leave high school and there are no jobs available to them. and when you have young people who have no jobs, who are not in school, who are hanging out on street corners, bad things can happen. and that is why i strongly believe that as a nation we should invest in our young people, in jobs, and in education. not jails for incarceration. [applause] ok, that is a little bit of what i wanted to say. arturo, take it away. >> before we get started, i want to recognize one of the very first elected officials that came out in support of senator sanders' candidacy. that is our councilmember. if you could please stand. [applause] >> the councilmember has a long history of advocating for latino communities, so thank you. [applause] the first question comes from a long time immigrant rights activists, from mexico. [applause] she has an indigenous ancestry and is an advocate for those indigenous communities and will share a story about the impact of trade and the indigenous background as it relates to the immigrant community. [applause] >> mr. sanders -- [speaking a foreign language] i will interpret. good afternoon, senator sanders. i was born in a mexican state. the largest indigenous population. my communities are in the highlands, where we wake up in the clouds. we are the people of the clouds. out of the 68 indigenous languages, 16 are spoken in our state. mexico is a multicultural, multilingual country, were 7.2 million mexicans speak indigenous languages. and 11.3% speak only indigenous linkages. one out of five mexicans is indigenous. according to the mexican human rights division. i come from a sacred place where very few people live, this is a ghost town. because most people have moved to los angeles. indigenous communities are rich in culture, however, every day we are forced -- due to the u.s. our lands are being taken by national companies, many of them u.s. owned. when we stand up for human rights, we are threatened by the mexican police and army. we saw the 43 missing students who were mostly indigenous. many members of the mexican army and police are training and security cooperation. they are not only waging a war on drugs, but they are waging a war on indigenous communities in the most indigenous states. many are working for u.s. companies in mexico. we go from being land owners, to become a low-wage workers. that is the reason we come to the u.s., it is the economic policies. in the u.s., we are in the same condition, we make more than 20% of the cultural in the labor force in california. we face discrimination and racism from other mexican brothers and sisters. we have integrated into the u.s. culture and in this audience you will find indigenous people who have graduated from harvard, stanford, ucla, not only with bachelor's degrees, but also with masters and phd. we contribute economically and culturally to the social fabric of the united states. we are proud to call ourselves americans, because we are the original owners of the american continent. [applause] >> yes, we are proud of being from this great country. we also have the right to be treated equally while being different. for this reason i ask you, what will you and your team do to build an inclusive coalition that acknowledges the diverse community and the policies that will recognize the indigenous peoples rights and make immigration voluntary? will you ensure that we can no longer be led to poverty and misplacement in our native oaxaca. and prohibit any future agreements that will increase unemployment, low wages, poverty and displacement of indigenous people all over? thank you and welcome to california. [applause] host: thank you. sen. sanders: thank you. >> can everybody repeat? [all speaking] >> thank you. sen. sanders: thank you. thank you for your presentation. you covered a lot of area, all important. truly important. one of those things, let me start with the end, and i will touch on the issues. trade. our current trade policy is going back to nafta have not only been a disaster for workers in this country, they have been a disaster for workers and farmers in mexico. [applause] sen. sanders: and as you have indicated, what has happened and what these trade agreements are, they are part of a global ethics for a race to the bottom. some of you remember jack welsh, does not name mean anything? he used to be the head of general logic. this is what he said before he got a $400 million retirement package. he said, if i had my wishes, i would put our manufacturing plants, ge manufacturing plants on a barge and i would take them to those parts of the world where wages were the lowest. and if somebody can go lower than mexico, we will go there. lower than china, lower than the vietnam. we will find a place where we can employ people for pennies an hour. you are looking at somebody unlike secretary clinton, who opposed all of these trade agreements which have cost us millions of jobs. [applause] sen. sanders: that is what those trade agreement have done in this country. what they have done in mexico is drive small family farmers off of their land. there are communities in mexico where you no longer can find, farms because they have shut down and they are unable to compete with companies coming from the united states. so this is a policy that has hurt workers in this country and hurt farmers in mexico. we will together transform the trade policies so that they work for the working people of this country, so that they work for the poor people of other countries, not just the ceos of large corporations. that is our trade policy. [applause] sen. sanders: as i go around the country, i have learned a lot beuse i have met with many people, point number one, we should be incredibly proud of the fact that in this country, unlike others, we have folks from hundreds of countries in every continent on earth coming to the united states of america. donald trump does not understand it, but our diversity is our strength. [applause] sen. sanders: think what your people are adding to the culture of this country. think what people from africa are adding to the culture of this country, from europe, from asia, that is our strength and we have got to build on the strength and not allow people to attack that strength. by that, what i mean is all of us are proud of where we come from. i just spoke last night to a group of native americans who understand that one of the challenges that their young people have is they have broken the roots from where they come from. as human beings it is important to all of us know where we come from. that we maintain the languages that we, our people knew. [applause] sen. sanders: our culture that we protect the sovereign right of people and to the promises made. to get to your very first question, whether it is dealing with the immigrant population or any other group, we have many problems in this country. and anybody thinks that i know all the answers, that is very wrong. the people that know the answers are the people that are doing the work, living the lives every single day. [applause] sen. sanders: and what a good leader does for his or her self interests, you bring in the communities and say ok, what do you see as the problems, what do you see as the solutions, and how do we go forward? that is always part of what i have tried to do and certainly that is what i would try to do with the immigrant population. thank you. [applause] host: our next presenter is a mother, she is undocumented and she is fighting [inaudible] for a very long time. please help me introduce betty. [applause] >> hi, i am an undocumented mother. i have been living here for 30 years. i never had the hope that i would be a citizen. i started talking about immigration reform -- i have a hope. i want to go back to my country. i feel like i am in san diego because it is a checkpoint. i go to another checkpoint. i see every day when i get home, i think about getting back. before, i was working and i was fine. but all of the hopes obama promised us, he is breaking the families apart. and when i say all these things that could happen. i talk with people every day. i pretend i am strong. but i am afraid to be deported. i have been living in this country more times than in my country. i feel like i deserve to be here. i work and i do a lot of things. i don't have nothing. i do not have hope. i am really afraid to be separated. i have a mom that is from tijuana. and this lady called me once and she was deported. she asked me, what will you do? she said, i am going to cross. if i die -- i said, no you do not have to do that. i feel like a mother. i feel like -- so i keep talking to her and now they are fighting to come back to this country. so i see what is going to happen for all of these people? what is going to happen. so my question is, what are you going to do with the reunification of these families and to stop the deportation? that is my concern. what will happen? [applause] sen. sanders: first of all, betty -- [applause] thank you for your courage. thank you for your willingness in your own difficult times to help other people. number one, as i mentioned earlier, our immigration policy must be to unite families, not divide them. i will end the deportation policies that currently exist so you do not have to live in fear. [applause] i was in phoenix a number of months ago and i will never forget, sometimes you see things, i remembered about a half a dozen teenage kids, latinos -- young ladies. tears were coming down their cheeks because they expressed the same fear. on any given day, they could be separated from their mother or father. and they live in fear. number one, we will end the current deportation policies. [applause] sen. sanders: and number two, we will fight for the comprehensive immigration reform. you have been in this country for 30 years. [applause] sen. sanders: if you have been in this country 30 years then you are an american in every sense and we need to make that legal as well. [applause] sen. sanders: and if raul's colleagues in the house refuse to do the right things, we will look at all options in terms of expanding immigration rights through the executive powers that the president has. that is what we will do. thank you very much. raul, do you want to add anything? >> i think that you covered it. host: our final presenter is a representative of a day laborer network that organizes immigrant workers all throughout southern california and has been doing this for a long time, a well-recognized leader across the country. please let me welcome him. [applause] >> gracias. buenas tardes. i am a mexican from el salvador. [laughter] [applause] >> so i can say, bienvenido a la casa del mexicano. welcome. welcome to los angeles. [applause] >> a city that is on the road to becoming a -- city. isn't that right? even if donald trump does not like it, we are going to become a full sanctuary city. and with you in the white house, our country will become a sanctuary for everyone. so i have had the honor to work with men and women who stand on public sidewalks in front of home improvement stores and it is an honor to work with workers, together with many colleagues who are here in this room today, and many colleagues across the country, we have been able to set up worker centers. and in these centers, the face of the new labor movement, many of these centers with the organizers do, we make sure that we send people, if they do not get paid, they get it back. we look at the basic remedy for those circumstances, but it is not enough. we connect 70 of these worker centers, so we make sure that the rights of workers are respected. not just the rights of workers, but there immigrant rights as well. before being immigrant, people are workers and these rights do not end at the border. so as we fight to improve wages and working conditions and thank you for being one of the champions for the fight. [applause] there are many abuses that go on in our country and every day millions of dollars are stolen from workers. somehow our country has made the decision, our country has built an incredible infrastructure to persecute the young man who is still selling candy at a local store, particularly if he is a man of color. we have an infrastructure, our city spends half of the budget in persecuting people like that. but the infrastructure to persecute employers who steal wages is very small. there is one investigator in los angeles county. it does not make sense. but the infrastructure to persecute employers who steal worker's wages is very small. there is one investigator in los angeles county. it does not make sense. as much progress as we have made nationally, we have to make sure that those decisions that council members have made, get enforced. as a representative of immigrant workers, the best way to start making sure that we enforce the law is by making sure that every undocumented worker who is cheated of wages, every undocumented worker whose rights are violated, that they have an opportunity to seek immigration status. if a migrant worker is the victim of a crime, they cannot fight for a visa. so what about this, if they are victims of workplace violations, would you support that effort? sen. sanders: absolutely. [applause] sen. sanders: let me just, if i might very briefly. i want to tell you a story. in 2007, i had heard about the exploitation of undocumented workers in florida. and i went down there. and what i saw in a town where they grow tomatoes, tomato workers, literally the day i got into the town a contractor, a labor contractor, was being arrested by the u.s. attorney, you know for what kind? 2007, you know what the crime was? when i went down there, coincidentally there was a contractor holding people in involuntary servitude. slavery. forcing them to work against their own will. that was not the first case of slavery brought in that area. what i saw where workers that were clearly exploited, in the field, not getting paid. if it rained, you do not get paid. the working conditions were visible, the health care access was terrible. i need your help on this. my impression is we just came back from the delano area where i had the opportunity to go where chavez was on his hunger strike in order to protest exploitation of farmworkers and the pesticide they were exposed to. my impression is that even today while the situation is better than when chavez was active, but today thousands of workers are being cheated, is that accurate? [yelling] sen. sanders: i'm sorry? >> [inaudible] sen. sanders: right. and the reason, this is what you are combating right now, you have no legal rights. if i pay you three dollars in our, what will you do about it? you are not going to go to the police, right? that is what you are trying to reform. the idea of opposing vigorously this type of labor exploitation of undocumented workers -- it is the right thing to do. but you know what else, there are workers who are documented, how the impact them? if employers can pay starvation wages, why would i pay somebody else higher wages? it is the race to the bottom. we need to fight to make sure the undocumented workers get treated fairly and have real recourse. your recourse is, somebody cheats them, you can find legal status. you have employers who are laughing all the way to the bank. right? they are ripping off workers and making a whole lot of money instead of paying legal wages. we need to deal with that and we need to hold those employers accountable. [applause] host: we are now going to go to questions from the audience and caesar will be here. the team will select the first question. >> i want to make a statement first. this is from one of our great supporters. >> [speaking spanish] [applause] sanders: i got the first half and arturo give me the second half. that i should have studied spanish better. -- providingible] a great future for her son. recipient -- she wants to know if elected, what would you do. definitely the undocumented worknity is doing a lot of and ventura, california to get you elected, senator. sen. sanders: congratulations on your son going to college. i will use the executive powers again. obviously we want congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform. if congress does not do the right thing, i will build upon what president obama has done expand dapa and daca. [applause] >> [speaking spanish] i am a professor of architecture at california space university. [applause] si seuede. i have been teaching there for 14 years. since 2002, tuition went from $5,000.g like $1400 to that may seem affordable for some but for immigrant families that is a big number. our families are working families. our students are under a lot of pressure to have to work instead of going to school. what is your future presidency ?oing for us is something this the vast majority of american people feel strongly about. this is the issue. it's kind of a no-brainer. we live in an increasingly competitive global economy. if this country is going to succeed economically, and in other ways, we need the best educated workforce in the world. if we were really smart, what we would be doing is urging everybody, not just younger people. the economy changes every day. we would provide opportunities for everybody to get the best education that they could. right now, as they just indicated, the cost of college is unaffordable to hundreds of thousands of young people. others who go to college and up working. these are young people trying to but they wantool to do 20 to 40 hours per week. how can you have the ability to do well in school when you work so many hours? going to bed so late. kids are working the night shift. all of that is crazy. it is not good for this country. , it's why, as i said earlier believe that public colleges and universities like yours should be tuition-free. also, i believe that we have to deal with the crisis of student debt. they have to pay off the debt year after year, sometimes decade after decade. it means the cannot afford to get a car, or a house. they can't get married, they can't have children. we have to change our mentality regarding education. we should encourage and reward people. i don't think you should be punished for getting a good education. say, that sounds a great idea, you're a nice guy. how are you going to pay for all that stuff. that takes us to another issue our campaignuishes from hillary clinton or anybody else. we live in a country with more income and wealth inequality than any other major country on earth. the top 20 own more wealth than the bottom half of america. what we have seen for the last 30 years is the middle class shrinking and shrinking while -- costs andrusts education costs are soaring. that is why so many middle-class -- that is why it is time to tell the billionaire class and wall street that they cannot have it all. are going to put tax on wall street speculation that will raise more than enough money, more than enough money to make public colleges and universities tuition-free with substantially lower student debt. you know how much it cost to go to college in germany? zero. you know how much it costs to go to college and scandinavia? zero. these countries are smart. they are investing in the young people of their country and we should do the same. >> mr. sanders, i am from the san fernando valley. i shared a bit of my story earlier today. 40% of homeless youth in our country are part of the lgbt community. huge issue. when i was homeless at 17 in i seea, not only did better ads that were homeless but many of my queer and transgender youth who were undocumented. can you commit to the undocumented lgbt youth who are homeless, and with more than 25 transgender women of color who have been murdered last year, can you make family acceptance and trans awareness a priority as a public issue? sen. sanders: let me just say this. our job is to end all forms of discrimination. discrimination based on color, race, sexual orientation. anybody goes to anybody and that is my pledge to you. we have to get going? >> two more questions. >> senator sanders, it is a pleasure to have you here in this iconic place in the mexican community and -- in the mexican community. gomez. is guadalupe priorities for the mexican community, education, health care for all, global warming. we need your help, beyond this election. but we will do everything we can to put you in the white house. we need your help in repealing signed by president clinton that criminalized our people. it is resulted in so many deportations and separations of families leaving children behind crying, with no one to care for them. secondly, we need to get rid of the privatization centers that have profited from the suffering of our people. can we count on you? sanders: for me start with the second and will go to the first. platform inour terms of criminal justice, it's very clear that we have to and corporate ownership of prisons and detention centers. job should be to keep people out of jail. if you are a corporation that owns a jail, what is your incentive? you make more money by putting people into jail. we have to and that and i will. that is one of the important planks on our criminal justice reform. the point that you made also, i mentioned that earlier. there is a lot of pain in the immigrant community. i have heard it from so many people. people who are afraid of being deported, afraid of being separated from their children, or children being separated from their parents. that is how the policy should be. we unite families, not divide families. >> [inaudible] >> i can add to what the senator has already said. >> if we do not repeal those provisions of the laws that led to the situation, you cannot have the kind of comprehensive information reform that we want. the other thing is the requirement that so many beds are being filled for these prisons, again. i think one of the reasons we are so committed to bernie is because we -- we see the positive effect. as my dad said, [speaking spanish]. it has been sincerely real. what bernie says in this setting is the same as he says in another setting. that is very important. >> one last question. >> my name is perez cruz and i work in a car wash. i am with local 675. i'm following the steps. [applause] worker.immigrant i am one of many immigrant workers. i would like to ask you how you can help us. sen. sanders: when you're looking for someone who has as strong a pro-worker and voting record and life some activity of any member of the united states congress. >> i don't know what you're doing now but we will have or fight for the federal minimum wage of $15 an hour. we will fight for legislation. we will make sure every person in this country has health care as a right, not a privilege. [applause] >> one last question senator sanders. .arlos, door -- carlos amador our communities are over policed. reason,of that community members have convictions. president obama says he is supporting fallon's families. families.s are our would you give people a second chance in which you get ice out of the jail? sen. sanders: i don't what to give you a definitive answer other than to say we will take a hard look at all aspects of criminal justice. we have a broken system. but me give you one example. i am not here to speak for marijuana or against marijuana, in what the story is, people minority communities get arrested for marijuana possession at a much higher rate than people in white communities. that leads to criminal records and all caps of problems -- all kinds of problems. i am aware of the problem with ice. i have talked to families who have been very negatively impacted by ice. we will take a hard look at that. make on point i want to criminal justice, maybe i should've made it earlier. it will trigger under my investigation and immediate investigation by the federal department. [applause] i want to see in local police departments, those departments reflect the diversity of the communities that they serve. and the militarization of local police departments. >> thank you all very much. chanting "bernie"] tomorrow, former president bill clinton campaigns for democratic presidential candidate hillary clinton at a get out the vote event in east los angeles. live coverage of his remarks at 3:15 p.m. et on c-span. >> our live coverage continues on tuesday with primaries and six states. sec. clinton: a more different vision for our country than the of between our side democrats or progress for , fairness and opportunity then the presumptive nominee on the republican side. >> we will win on education. no more common core. bring it down. we wanted local. were going to win with health care. we're going to win at the border. we're going to win at trade. sen. sanders: we have to redefine what politics mean in america. we need people from coast-to-coast standing up, fighting back, and demanding the government that represents all

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