In a speech to the largest Latino civil rights group in the United States, Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders blasted Donald Trump for comments the businessman turned Republican presidential candidate made about Mexicans that have enraged Latinos across the country.
“Not Donald Trump, not anyone else will be successful in dividing us based on race or our country of origin,” Sanders told an enthusiastic crowd of about 400 people gathered here Monday for the annual conference of the National Council of La Raza. “Racism has plagued the United States since its inception,” Sanders said while recalling his own family history including losing family members during the Holocaust.
After the speech, Sanders told reporters that Trump’s comments were an “outrage.”
“For a major candidate for president of the United States to be throwing slurs at one group of people because of the country of origin that they came from is totally unacceptable, period.”
Sanders was asked twice whether Trump was a racist but both times he declined to answer. “I don’t want to psychoanalyze Donald Trump,” he said.
This was the second major speech Sanders has given to a national Latino group since announcing his candidacy. Last month, Sanders addressed the National Association of Latino Elected Officials in Las Vegas where many in the audience were expecting him to deliver a stronger stance on immigration reform than he had in the past.
Immigration reform was one of the key points in his speech to the Kansas City crowd on Monday where he called the issue “one critical piece that must be talked about” when talking about the Latino community. “Without these folks it is likely that out agricultural system would collapse,” Sanders said.
Undocumented workers, he said, do the difficult work of “harvesting our crops, cooking our meals and caring for our children.” Sanders called for “a responsible path to citizenship,” for undocumented workers and reiterated his support for the DREAM Act and the children of undocumented immigrants who he described as “American kids who deserve the right to legally be in the country they know as home.”