Sanders vows to end Trump's policies on day one in office

US Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders says he will rescind President Donald Trump’s executive actions on immigration on day one of his taking office.

Sanders said in a detailed immigration policy plan released on Thursday that he would move quickly on changes that required no congressional action and start with a moratorium on all deportations until an audit of US immigration enforcement policies was conducted.

The 2020 presidential candidate vowed to end Trump actions like zero tolerance immigration policy and limit the number of asylum-seekers at the US-Mexico border.

"The Trump administration’s treatment of immigration exclusively as a criminal and national security matter is inhumane, impractical, and must end," read the proposal.

"As president, Bernie Sanders would make undocumented immigration a civil matter, and fundamentally reform the government agencies tasked with enforcing immigration law in a way that views immigration as a historically valued process that’s woven into our country’s fabric," it noted.

The Sanders’ immigration policy would immediately grant legal status to people eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and facilitate citizenship for undocumented immigrants, including those with "old or low-level contacts with the criminal justice system."

The Vermont senator said he would decriminalize border crossings, arguing that, “Punitive policies have been justified as a deterrent to migration, but in addition to being morally wrong, there is no evidence that these policies have served this purpose.”

Sanders stressed that, “The criminalization of immigrants has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars, dehumanized vulnerable migrants, and swelled already-overcrowded jails and prisons.”

The presidential hopeful went on to say that he would end detention for essentially every migrant without a violent criminal conviction, vowing to fund “community-based alternatives to detention” that would give migrants access to legal resources and health care.

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Senator Bernie Sanders has lambasted the US decision to withdraw American troops from northeastern Syria, calling Trump a liar for abandoning long-time Kurdish militant allies in the region.

Sanders said he would not finish Trump’s border wall, adding that he would instead funnel government resources into creating workplaces with a focus on immigrant-heavy industries.

The 78-year-old senator put together the proposal through the help of a committee of Hispanic advisers with diverse grassroots and policy backgrounds.

Sanders still polls in the top three of most national and statewide surveys and has so far raised $25.3 million in the third quarter of 2019, the most of any candidate.

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