Bernie Sanders wants to abolish ICE and halt deportations for everyone except violent criminals. Elizabeth Warren agrees with Sanders on deportations and says the U.S. should increase refugee admissions to 175,000 a year, nearly 10 times President Trumps current limit.

Amy Klobuchar promises to restore the right to asylum for victims of domestic violence. Joe Biden says he could persuade Congress, after decades of deadlocks, to overhaul and humanize the immigration system. Tom Steyer wants a virtual halt to deportations and an end to criminal prosecutions for unauthorized border-crossing.

Those views and others were in the spotlight for the first time in the Democratic presidential campaign at a recent forum on immigration issues a prime topic for Trump, but one that has received relatively little attention in debates and primary contests so far, with crucial votes looming Tuesday in California and several other states.

Of the candidates invited to send representatives to the Feb. 20 forum in Las Vegas, sponsored by Amnesty International, the only no-show was for Pete Buttigieg, former mayor of South Bend, Ind.

All the prominent contenders, including Buttigieg, agree on reversing Trumps most far-reaching policies: the zero-tolerance arrests and prosecutions of all undocumented immigrants, separating children from their parents, severe restrictions on asylum, and the wait in Mexico mandate for 60,000 asylum-seekers that was halted by a federal appeals court on Friday. Also, they would end Trumps cancellation of deportation reprieves for 700,000 migrants who entered as youngsters and another 320,000 from nations ravaged by wars or natural disasters, and diversion of federal funds to build a wall at the Mexico border.

But some of their differences were on display at the forum, including Sanders plan to break up Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the post-Sept. 11 agency whose officers conduct immigration-related arrests and workplace raids nationwide.

The nation doesnt need an agency roaming around simply for the purpose of terrorizing and deportation, said the Vermont senators representative, campaign manager Faiz Shakir.

He said current ICE agents should be reassigned to border safety work while immigration enforcement is turned over to the Justice Department. And the U.S. also needs a moratorium on deportations, Shakir said, removing only violent criminals who have served their sentences while sparing 99% of the people living here peacefully and contributing to Americas economy.

Warrens spokesman, Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, expressed similar views on deportation while saying ICE should be reformed from top to bottom, with immigration enforcement assigned to some other agency. Massachusetts Sen. Warren also doesnt believe that folks should be terrorized in their workplace, and wants lawyers to be provided for migrants seeking asylum, Castro said.

Bidens representative, Nevada state Sen. Yvanna Cancela, wasnt asked about deportation policy. But at another Nevada event hosted by CNN, the former vice president promised to halt all deportations for his first 100 days in office, and then to deport only immigrants who have committed a felony in the United States apparently not including the felony of illegal re-entry.

A week earlier, Biden had acknowledged, in an interview with Univision, that the record 3 million deportations under President Barack Obama including 1.7 million removals of immigrants with no criminal records had been a big mistake.

But he said the Obama administration began to get it right with Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which allowed 700,000 immigrants brought to the U.S. before age 16 to remain in the country and get work permits for renewable two-year periods. Trump has sought to abolish the program, a dispute now before the Supreme Court.

At the immigration forum, Cancela said Biden opposes abolishing ICE but believes it has become a domestic witch-hunting organization that needs to return to its intended mission of combatting terrorism.

Similarly, Melissa Franzen, a state senator from Klobuchars home state of Minnesota, said Klobuchar does not propose to eliminate ICE, but wants it revamped and restructured to work toward keeping people safe, not terrorizing communities.

Asked about immigrants who have been sent back to Central America under Trumps order that bans virtually all Central Americans from seeking asylum, Franzen said Klobuchar would reverse the ban while taking steps to make sure the deportees can apply for U.S. asylum in their home country. Castro said Warren would allow them to return to the U.S. to apply.

Franzen said Klobuchars priorities would be to restore the right to asylum for those fleeing domestic violence, reversing a Trump administration policy; ending the caging of children, and, in the first year, winning congressional approval of a more enlightened immigration policy.

But Cancela said Biden was the one who has the relationship with Congress and the experience to get it done and rewrite the immigration laws, with a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants.

Steyer, the only candidate to attend in person, agreed with Sanders and Warren on deportation policy and also said unauthorized border-crossing should not be treated as a crime a position endorsed by Sanders and Warren, but not by the other candidates. The criminal law has been on the books since 1929, but was seldom enforced until the mid-2000s, and has been ramped up under the Trump administrations zero tolerance policy.

Steyer said ICE should be revamped, not abolished, but called for an end to the relationship between ICE and local law enforcement, a position akin to the sanctuary policies of California and many of its local governments.

When Steyer advocated a ban on housing detained immigrants in private prisons, the forum moderator, BuzzFeed News reporter Hamed Aleaziz, a former Chronicle staff writer, pointed out that the billionaires hedge fund had invested in Corrections Corp. of America, a leading owner of private prisons.

That was a mistake, Steyer replied, but I reversed it 15 years ago ... sold it for moral reasons, before anyone was talking about it.

Buttigieg, while bypassing the forum, has outlined immigration policies that include an end to ICE detainers orders to local police agencies to keep immigrants in custody so they can be deported and a pathway to citizenship for most current undocumented migrants.

He has not called for abolition or restructuring of ICE, but said he would favor cuts in the agencys budget and in the lockup of immigrant families and asylum-seekers to reduce detention of immigrants by at least 75%.

Another Democratic contender, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, was not invited to the forum since he did not take part in the Nevada presidential caucus. His positions on immigration, outlined earlier this month, include substantial increases in refugee admissions and visas including placed-based visas for states and local governments to meet their economic needs a ban on private detention of immigrants, and reversal of Trumps asylum restrictions.

As mayor, Bloomberg signed laws in 2013 that limited New York Citys cooperation with ICE and barred local law enforcement from holding and handing over migrants with little or no past criminal record. But in a 2017 television interview, he rejected the concept of sanctuary cities.

You cannot have everybody deciding which laws they should obey, Bloomberg said. The law is the law.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko

More here:

Democratic presidential candidates where they stand on immigration - San Francisco Chronicle