
Bernie Sanders: "Open borders? That's a Koch brothers proposal"
About this video
A short clip of Bernie Sanders in conversation with Ezra Klein of Vox, where he rejects open borders as a proposal that serves the Koch brothers. It is an excerpt from a longer interview on global poverty.
Why it appears in the archive
HN commenters cite it in immigration debates as evidence of Sanders' 2015 position that open borders and high immigration hurt wages.
AI-generated summary and labels from the source dataset; verify important details against the video. Source & credits.
From the Hacker News discussion
I think Bernie Sanders elucidates well on this issue in this video. It's about immigration but essentially the same situation: [VIDEO] Basically whether it is morally right or wrong is irrelevant because the US government has a duty to put the American people first.
Read original comment ↗Anti-globalization was always a hot topic for the left. Read Chomsky on NAFTA for example and free trade: [LINK] Here is Bernie Sanders being visibly upset at raising immigration levels and instituting "open borders" policy: [VIDEO] I am kind of interested how the current liberals become pro-globalization all of the sudden. They went from organizing large anti-globalization riots, and getting tear gased fighting it, to "What do you mean? We love globalization!". I want to see a more specific analysis in how the shift happened, and maybe a more detailed timeline. Certainly an interesting topic. Here is of course Zuckerberg with his letter worrying that people are not buying the globalization shtick very well anymore: [LINK] If you squint enough to not notice the liberal veneer he puts on you might think he is one of the Koch brothers.
Read original comment ↗I made a few tangential points regard globalization in a similar discussion. Basically wondering how globalization which was a very right wing corporatist idea (Sanders calls it a Koch brothers proposal here [VIDEO] basically) became a favorite of the new left. And conversely anti-globalization was a top issue for the left along with TPP, NAFTA and other such stuff. I think it is rather ironic that the new "left" love them globalization all of the sudden, even when their younger brothers were tear-gassed protesting it, just a decade ago or so protesting against it. (More discussion here [LINK] along with a promising book on the subject, 'The Technological Society' by Jacques Ellul suggested by Drumlin. Still waiting for it to come from Amazon)
Read original comment ↗There an interesting thing there. Bernie, believe or not, was very much against globalization, TPP and open borders in general: [VIDEO] Listen to how he says it, it's a thing he really hates. This is not fluke or anything, Chomsky another leftist thinker also has been anti-NAFTA well, since it was signed pretty much: [LINK] Notice how he correctly predicted an influx of poor South American farmers who are pretty much forced to abandon their family to come and wash toilets and pick crops here.
Read original comment ↗For context , this is the video [VIDEO] and yeah, open borders was a libertarian idea but somehow the tables have turned.
Read original comment ↗It's supply and demand 101, illegal immigration combined with offshoring lowers wages and increases profit margin for the wealthy. Low wage jobs are taken by illegal immigrants, forcing US citizens to take on debt to go to college, where wages are also lowered because there are now thousands of college grads desperate to pay off their debt that can't be eliminated through bankruptcy due to congress being lobbied. A wonderful scam. Same thing with big tech companies pushing for more H1B to push down engineering wages and lower standard of living. This stuff shouldn't even be left vs right, it should be common sense. Here's bernie sanders talking about how open boarders is pushed by the koch brothers to give them cheap labor [VIDEO] We're rapidly heading towards feudalism 2.0. You can already see it in the Bay Area(and essentially any major urban area) where only the wealthy can afford a home. The majority pay a large chunk of their income to their landlord
Read original comment ↗Older family friend made $30/hr in the 60-70s with pension and benefits working in a meat packing plant with a high school education. Same job today pays $15/hr with no benefits thanks to illegal immigration. There's a reason people like the Koch brothers spend millions in support of illegal immigration, they wanted to drive down the labor cost for jobs like the above. [VIDEO] Offshoring and illegal immigration has killed low skill jobs and given billion dollar multinational corporations the ability to demand whatever they want from workers because they have unlimited labor supply. This doesn't just effect low skill labor either, it forces more people to go to college and take on debt which then drives down the wages of high skill work as well. It's a scam and the american people should be angry
Read original comment ↗That's not the same as against borders - see e.g. international trade, or tourism. Socialism today seems to agree with borders ( [VIDEO] ), and back then, there was national socialism...
Read original comment ↗