Tonight, when asked if he supported the nativist hate group Minutemen, Bernie Sanders said, “Of course not […] I do not support vigilantes, and that is a horrific statement and unfair statement to make.”
And while Sanders tries to portray himself as a lifelong advocate for immigrants, his voting history paints a very different picture:
2006: Bernie Sanders voted with a majority of GOPers to prohibit the U.S. Border Patrol from telling Mexico about the activities of the Minutemen, a nativist hate group. On June 6, 2006, Bernie Sanders voted for an amendment to the FY 2007 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act which read,“Page 62, after line 17, insert the following: Sec. 537. None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to provide a foreign government information relating to the activities of an organized volunteer civilian action group, as defined by DHS OIG-06- 4, operating in the State of California, Texas, New Mexico, or Arizona, unless required by international treaty.” According to the Congressional Record Rep. Kingston said, “I also have an amendment that I have offered, and what my amendment does is it is a payment limitation amendment because our own Border Patrol apparently is tipping off the Mexican government as to where Minutemen are on the Mexico-United States border. Currently, we have 7,000 volunteers in the Minutemen organization. I say volunteers. These are unpaid people who are so outraged with the runaway illegal immigration problem that they have set up posts along the southwest border to help the Border Patrol and the local law enforcement agencies to tell them where the people are coming in and who is coming in. I invite all Members of Congress to go to the southwest border sometime this summer and take a look at how outrageous and how out of control this problem is.” According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, “What follows is a state-by-state list of the 173 groups that constitute the nativist extremist movement, as fissured as it may be. In the case of three major groups — the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, the Minuteman Project, and the Federal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Coalition — acronyms have been added to help identify affiliated chapters that use other names. Groups marked by an asterisk (*) are also listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as hate groups.” [H.Amdt.971 to H.R.5441, Vote #224, 6/6/06; CQ Almanac, 2006; Congressional Record, 5/25/06; Southern Poverty Law Center, “’Nativist Extremist’ Group List,” (accessed, 12/8/15)]