In Iowa, Bernie Sanders Gets Pressed on Immigration

Visiting a town with a sizable Hispanic population, the presidential candidate is asked to expand on his immigration platform.

Democratic Presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) greets supporters during a visit to his Iowa campaign headquarters on June 13, 2015 in Des Moines, Iowa.
Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

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By Arit John

June 14, 2015 at 8:28 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

It was the closest Senator Bernie Sanders had come to getting heckled during his trip to Iowa. As Sanders was leaving a town hall meeting in Marshalltown, Iowa, on Saturday, Isaac Medina, a 19-year-old University of Iowa sophomore, followed the Democratic presidential candidate out of the building with a question he hadn’t been able to ask during the question-and-answer session: What was Sanders going to do about immigration?

Marshalltown has a sizable Hispanic population—24.1 percent, compared to the statewide average of 5 percent, according to the 2010 census—and has seen immigration raids tear families apart. Yet Sanders had held his event at the local chapter of the United Automobile Workers, signaling his ties to unions without focusing on immigration policy changes during his abbreviated stump speech.