Sanders, speaking at Dearborn’s Civic Center, March 7

DEARBORN — A day ahead of the Michigan primaries, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders pledged to fight bigotry, combat inequality, address the flaws of the justice system and pursue an even-handed foreign policy in the Middle East at a Dearborn rally. 

Sanders was introduced by Minnesota U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, America’s first Muslim congressman. Ellison, who endorsed Sanders early on in the campaign, talked up the senator’s record on standing for Muslim Americans. 

“We say welcome, we say Ahla w sahla to you,” Ellison told the audience.

Given Dearborn’s large Arab American population, which was reflected in the crowd, Sanders paid a nod to the Arab community at the beginning of his speech.

“I just had the honor of meeting with a number of Arab American leaders right here in Dearborn,” Sanders said. “I want to say…if there is anything we are going to accomplish together, it’s that we are going to end bigotry in this country once and for all.”

On foreign policy, Sanders said he would be neutral on the Middle East, pledging to work to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“I wish I could come before you and tell you that I have a magical solution, but I don’t,” Sanders said. “For decades now there’s been hatred and warfare in the Middle East…we’ve had some presidents, Carter, Clinton and others, who have tried to do their best to resolve it. All I can tell you is that I will make every single effort to bring rational people on both sides together, so that hopefully we can have, through a leveled playing field, the United States treating everybody in that region equally.”

The senator from Vermont was direct in his criticism on his Democratic opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Sanders distanced himself from Clinton’s interventionist policies, particularly in Libya, where the United States led a bombing campaign in 2011 when she was secretary of state. 

“Regime change does not always work out quite as smoothly as some people think it does,” Sanders said. “Secretary Clinton was one of the most aggressive people who said we have to go in and take out Gaddafi. ISIS now has a foothold in that country today.”

He slammed Clinton for voting for the Iraq War when she was a senator in 2002. Sanders was a U.S. rep. at the time. 

“I not only voted against that war; I was leading the opposition to going to war in Iraq,” he said. “Secretary Clinton heard the same evidence that I heard (on Iraq). She voted for that disastrous war.”

Sanders also criticized Clinton for backing free trade agreements, which make it easier for American companies to outsource jobs overseas, saying that he voted against every single one of those treaties. 

The senator said Clinton should release her paid speeches for Wall Street firms. The former secretary says she is willing to make the transcripts to those speeches public if other presidential candidates, including republicans, do the same.

“Secretary Clinton has also gone behind closed doors to some of the major Wall Street financial institutions. She gets paid $225,000 per speech,” he said. “Not bad for a day of work.”

Sanders “released” his own speeches to Wall Street at the rally, waving an empty hand in the air. He said he has never given such speeches.

Muslim woman taking a selfie behind the stage at a Bernie Sanders’ rally in Dearborn

On Republicans

The senator criticized Republican frontrunner Donald Trump for his divisive policies. 

“The Donald Trumps and his friends are not going to prevail in scapegoating minorities in this country,” Sanders said. “They are not going to be successful in attacking and degrading our Muslim friends and neighbors…or our Mexican friends and neighbors…and they are not going to divide us up.”

Sanders also attacked the Republican party’s anti-Immigrant rhetoric. 

He told the crowd that he can relate to immigrant families, referencing his father’s journey to the U.S. from Poland.

“My dad was an immigrant. He came to this country without a penny in his pocket,” Sanders said. “He never made much money, but he loved this country because of the opportunities it gave him and the abilities to raise two of his kids, the first of the family to go to college.”

He said he is listening to Latino Americans, who are living in fear because of their immigration status, pledging to give undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship. 

The senator went on to dismiss that his ideas are radical or unimplementable. He said his plan for tuition-free colleges is being called unreasonable, but women’s voting was called the same at the turn of the past century. 

Sanders promised to reform the criminal justice system.

“Want to hear a radical idea? We’re going to invest in education and jobs for our young people, not jails and incarceration,” Sanders said.

The senator tried to play the “radical” label to his advantage.

 “This campaign is doing something very very radical in American politics — it is telling the truth,” he said.

Sanders denounced Republicans, suggesting that they have undermined President Obama for his skin color, as evidenced by the “birther movement,” which was led by Donald Trump.

“President Obama’s father was born in Kenya,” he said. “My father was born in Poland. Nobody has ever asked me for my birth certificate. You think it might just have something to do with the color of my skin versus Obama’s skin?”

The senator urged Michiganders to come out in large numbers and volunteer for his campaign ahead of the Tuesday’s elections. 

“Let us show the establishment tomorrow we are not satisfied with the status quo. We want real change,” he said.