We’re only 15 days out from the first Democratic presidential primary debate. In a way, it’s a good thing the Democratic party instituted such an un-democratic debate schedule: It gives us a little time to review Bernie’s policy positions before the big day.

So here at Bay Area for Bernie, we’re counting down to the debate by going over one of Bernie’s policy positions each day between now and October 13.

First up: Immigration, in honor of Bernie’s appearance today on Univision’s Facebook page, where he’ll be answering questions in Spanish:

Can we take a moment to appreciate that look? If that doesn’t scream, “Get off my lawn, you kids,” I don’t know what does.

But back to immigration, which has been discussed on the Republican side with all the nuance, compassion and respect for civil liberties that Stalin brought to political dialogue. Look, we’re all immigrants here. On one side of my family, I have ancestors who fled the potato famine in Ireland; on the other, ancestors who fled the pogroms of Russia. They came to America because they were told America was a placed that valued the huddled masses as much as the gold-adorned executive. Our noble Republicans candidates have apparently decided that we needed a cure for too much equality and fairness.

Bernie’s take on the issue is pretty simple: Treat humans with humanity.

He supports the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals executive program and he voted for the DREAM act, which provides immigrant kids some (although certainly not enough) guarantee that they won’t be deported. He opposes tying immigration reform to the building of a fence – which has now become a wall, in Trumpspeak. And he is a forceful advocate of workers’ rights, regardless of where those workers came from and what language they speak. In inviting the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a group comprising many undocumented immigrant farm workers, to speak to the Senate about the horrendous conditions they worked under, he said:

In the United States today, millions of American workers are being forced into a race to the bottom. … What we have on the tomato fields here in Florida are workers who in fact exist at the lowest economic rung of that race to the bottom. We must address their plight, not only from a moral perspective, a perspective that says that people in America in 2008 cannot be exploited this way … but we must also deal with this issue from the understanding that if we look the other way and accept the terrible exploitation that is taking place here, every American worker is endangered as the race to the bottom accelerates.

Besides the pretty heinous mixed metaphor (lowest rung of a race? really?), that’s exactly right. The economic injustice of the exploitation of immigrant workers cannot be nicely separated from the moral outrage done on their dignity.

What’s so odd to me is how united Americans are in saying that we should provide a path to citizenship. Poll after poll shows that Americans think that undocumented immigrants should be provided with a way to stay here legally (72 percent in May) and that immigration is a good thing (73 percent in June). It’s almost as though our elected officials don’t really care about what we think. Go figure.

You can read more about Bernie’s stance on immigration here.

Figures in the header image are taken from the Gallup polling on immigration.