Democratic presidential candidate nominee Bernie Sanders says that he wants undocumented immigrants who have already been deported to be brought back to the United States if they have close family members living there. The independent senator from Vermont made the statements on Tuesday during an immigration program, according to USA Today.
“The United States must do the right thing and guarantee the swiftest possible reunification of these broken families,” Sanders said. His platform, which goes well beyond those being suggested by his Democratic presidential candidate rivals, wants to keep all kinds of family units together, while also including a number of other protections for the approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living and working in the United States.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has a policy known as ‘parole in place’, which is vital to the Sanders proposal. In the great majority of instances undocumented immigrants who wish to gain legal residency in the United States have to first go back to their home nation and make their application from there; however, the DHS can grant ‘parole in place’ status if there are urgent humanitarian reasons for doing so, allowing them to wait in the United States while authorities consider their application.
The plan created by Sanders would ask the DHS to arrange for immigrants who have been ‘wrongfully deported’ to be returned to the United States, including the children, parents and spouses of people with US citizenship and those who came to the US as children.