(PatrioticPost.com)- The two presidential campaigns for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders have been levied large fines after they hired illegal aliens.
The Daily Caller News Foundation obtained a ruling from the Federal Election Commission that shows Sanders’ presidential campaigns in both 2016 and 2020 hired illegal aliens to serve in some top roles on the staff.
The FEC ruling was handed down back on August 11, but hasn’t been released to the public yet. The DCNF obtained that ruling, though, which said the campaigns violated federal law for “knowingly” employing three “foreign national” staffers from Argentina and Mexico.
Those staffers participated in the DACA program, known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
As part of an agreement with the SEC, Sanders’ campaign has agreed to pay a combined penalty of $15,000 for those infractions.
The FEC ruling reads:
“They were tasked with planning and executing events intended to mobilize the Spanish-speaking and Latino communities to support Sanders and serving as contacts for Latino media outlets. The employees worked to help craft and deliver campaign policy on the issue of immigration and other issues of interest to the Latino community.”
The three staffers at the heart of the issue are Erika Andiola, a Mexican who served as the former press secretary for Latino Outreach; Cesar Vargas, a Mexican who served as a former national strategist for Latino Outreach; and Maria Belen Sisa, an Argentinian who is a former organization for Latino Outreach.
DACA is a policy that was passed under the Obama administration. It granted illegal aliens who were younger than 16 when they arrived in America with a work permit. It didn’t, however, give them citizenship.
Sanders has long been a supporter of that policy. And just last week, the Department of Homeland Security announced that the program will be codified as federal regulation by President Joe Biden.
Back in 2019, the Coolidge Reagan Foundation, a watchdog group focused on the First Amendment, filed an ethics complaint to the FEC regarding Sanders’ campaigns hiring illegal aliens. That led to FEC investigation and the subsequent ruling and fines.
Dan Backer, the legal counsel for the CRF, commented recently:
“I find it incredibly ironic and not at all surprising that the same people who were so outraged by the Russia hoax were at the same time violating laws to prevent foreign influence in our elections.”
All foreign nationals are barred from contributing either indirectly or directly to a local, state or federal election, under the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971. No foreign national is allowed to have “involvement in the management of a political committee” either, as the FEC announced in its ruling.
This is just another instance in which the Sanders campaign paid a fee for violations of laws. In 2018, the paid a $14,500 find after accepting volunteer delegates who came from the Australian Labor Party.
As Backer explained of Sanders’ stance in these matters:
“The law is for thee and not for me. Bernie is like every other corrupt, entitled woke elitist. The law only applies when convenient to their political enemies.”
