FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20463

BEFORE THE FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION

In the Matters of ) 

) MURs 7587/7712

SENATOR BERNARD SANDERS, ET AL. ) 

STATEMENT OF REASONS OF CHAIR SHANA M. BROUSSARD AND VICE 

CHAIR ALLEN DICKERSON

These Matters Under Review concern allegations that Senator Bernard 

Sanders of Vermont, and his relevant campaign committees, hired foreign nationals

in the 2016 and 2020 election cycles. In addition, they encompass allegations that the 

Maricopa County Democratic Party hired a foreign national to serve as its 

communications director, that Tom Steyer’s 2020 presidential campaign committee 

hired a foreign national, that a vendor run by a foreign national was hired by federal 

political committees to assist them in their election-related decision-making, and that 

Senator Sanders’s 2016 campaign committee received ten donations, totaling thirtyfive dollars, from a single foreign national.

We agree that the complaints properly allege conduct violating the Federal 

Election Campaign Act of 1971 (“Act”), as amended, which prohibits foreign nationals 

from directly or indirectly making a contribution or expenditure in connection with 

any federal, state, or local election.1 But while we voted to find reason to believe that 

Senator Sanders and his campaign committees violated the Act, we chose to exercise 

our discretion pursuant to Heckler v. Chaney2 and voted to dismiss the remaining 

respondents.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

The complaints allege that in 2016 and 2020, Senator Sanders’s campaign

committees intentionally hired several foreign national recipients of the Deferred 

Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”) program to work for his campaign and gave 

1 52 U.S.C. § 30121(a)(1); 11 C.F.R. §110.20.

2 Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821, 831 (1985) (“This Court has recognized on several occasions over 

many years that an agency’s decision not to prosecute or enforce, whether through civil or criminal 

process, is a decision generally committed to an agency’s absolute discretion”).

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them policy roles and campaign titles. The complaints raise similar allegations 

regarding Tom Steyer’s 2020 campaign committee and the Maricopa County 

Democratic Party’s hiring of its communications director. They also allege that a 

commercial vendor, La Machine, which was founded in 2015 by a DACA recipient, 

assisted in the decision-making for election-related activity undertaken by federal 

political committees.

The remaining allegation concerns a total of thirty-five dollars, in ten separate 

installments, contributed by a DACA recipient to Senator Sanders’s 2016 campaign 

committee.

II. LEGAL ANALYSIS

DACA recipients are neither United States citizens nor legal permanent 

residents. Participation in the DACA program confers “no substantive right, 

immigration status[,] or pathway to citizenship.”3 Rather, DACA recipients have been 

given, “in the exercise of [the Department of Homeland Security’s] prosecutorial 

discretion,” abeyance from the strict “enforce[ment of] the Nation’s immigration laws 

against [the recipients]...who were brought to this country as children and...[a]s a 

general matter...lacked the intent to violate the law.”4 Under the Act, then, DACA 

recipients are foreign nationals.5

The Act and its accompanying regulations prohibit foreign nationals from 

making political contributions to candidates and party committees.6 Nor may these

foreign contributions be lawfully received by any person, including a political 

committee.7 The Commission has interpreted these provisions to prohibit a foreign 

national from “direct[ing], dictat[ing], control[ling], or directly or indirectly 

participat[ing] in the decision-making process” of any entity “with regard to such 

person’s Federal or non-Federal election-related activities.”8

While “[w]e know from more than a century of Supreme Court case law that 

foreign citizens in the United States enjoy many of the constitutional rights that U.S. 

3 Memorandum from Sec’y of Homeland Security at 3, Dep’t of Homeland Security, June 15, 2012.

4 Id. at 1.

5 52 U.S.C. § 30121(b) (defining “foreign national”).

6 52 U.S.C. § 30121(a)(1)(A)-(B). 

7 52 U.S.C. § 30121(a)(2).

8 11 C.F.R. § 110.20(i). 

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citizens do,”9 these provisions have been upheld against constitutional challenge

because they are “‘intimately related to the process of democratic selfgovernment’...In other words, the government may reserve ‘participation in its 

democratic political institutions’ for citizens of this country.”10 

Accordingly, we voted to find “reason to believe” against Senator Sanders and 

his campaign committees. The evidence demonstrated that Senator Sanders not only 

hired foreign nationals for his 2016 campaign, but again in 2020. This was no 

accident. The record shows that Senator Sanders “sought out and paid foreign 

nationals in the participate in the campaign.”11 And these “foreign national 

employees were given formal, campaign-wide titles, helped to form policy platforms, 

and placed in positions in close proximity to Sanders.”12 

Moreover, Senator Sanders directed his campaigns to seek out and hire foreign 

nationals despite having been the subject of a conciliation agreement with the 

Commission “in which [the 2016 campaign committee] agreed that it had accepted 

prohibited in-kind foreign national contributions when Australian delegates 

performed campaign services for the Committee while the delegates received per 

diem stipends and had their travel paid for by the Australian Labor Party.”13

The situation is different, however, for the other respondents. 

Senator Sanders’s hiring policies strongly contrast with the allegation 

regarding Tom Steyer’s 2020 presidential campaign committee. There, OGC 

determined that “[g]iven the lack of specific allegations against Steyer 2020 and [the 

DACA recipient], and in light of the specific, sworn statements provided by Steyer 

2020 to rebut these allegations, the available record does not” suggest a “violat[ion 

of] the Act.”14

Moreover, while the DACA recipients hired by the Sanders campaigns 

participated in the decision-making of the campaign, the evidence suggests that these 

employees were hired, at least in part, as a political or policy statement by Senator 

9Bluman v. Fed. Election Comm’n, 800 F.Supp.2d 281, 287 (D.D.C. 2011) (three-judge court) (collecting 

cases). 

10 Id. (quoting Bernal v. Fainter, 467 U.S. 216, 220 (1984) and Foley v. Connelie, 435 U.S. 291, 295 

(1978)). 

11 First Gen’l Counsel’s Report, MUR 7587 (Sanders) at 13.

12 Id. at n.45; see also First Gen’l Counsel’s Report, MUR 7712 (Bernie 2020) at 7.

13 Factual & Legal Analysis, MUR 7587 (Sanders) at 5. 

14 First Gen’l Counsel’s Report, MUR 7712 (Bernie 2020) at 8.

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Sanders concerning DACA itself.15 In these circumstances, it is our view that agency 

resources are best directed at the senator and his campaign committees that flouted 

the law, not the individual employees.

Nor would enforcement against the other named DACA recipients have 

constituted a wise use of agency resources. OGC was unable to provide evidence that 

the “communications director” of the Maricopa County Democratic Party had

anything more than a support role, tightly controlled by the party’s executive staff 

and board.16 Nor did the complaint against La Machine, the commercial vendor 

founded by a DACA recipient, “include specific information that [the individual 

respondent] or La Machine provided services to any particular committee, or that 

those services include[d] election-related decision-making concerning a committee’s 

contributions or expenditures.”17 Finally, the thirty-five dollars in donations provided

by a single DACA recipient is plainly de minimis. 

Moreover, we believe it bears mention that DACA recipients, due to their 

unique status as individuals “brought to this country as children,”18 are unlikely to 

constitute the same type of threat to “democratic self-government” posed by noncitizens with loyalty to a foreign state.19 

Taken together, particularly in light of the substantial backlog of Matters that 

accumulated during the Commission’s recent periods without a quorum, we do not 

believe it would not have been a wise use of agency resources to proceed against the 

remaining respondents.

CONCLUSION

While we voted to find reason to believe against Senator Sanders and his 

campaign committees, we declined, as a matter of administrative discretion under 

Heckler v. Chaney, to proceed against the remaining respondents.

15 First Gen’l Counsel’s Report, MUR 7587 (Sanders) at 13 (“Sanders and the Committees sought out

and paid foreign nationals...”) (emphasis supplied).

16 First Gen’l Counsel’s Report, MUR 7712 (Bernie 2020) at 12.

17 Id. at 10-11 (emphasis supplied).

18 Memorandum from Sec’y of Homeland Security at 1. 

19 Bluman, 800 F.Supp.2d at 287 (citation and quotation marks omitted). While recognizing this 

general fact, we do not foreclose enforcement in future Matters involving DACA recipients. In 

exercising our administrative discretion, however, we must weigh the pros and cons of devoting scarce 

Commission resources on a case by case basis. We believe it is appropriate to consider the nature of 

the respondents before us in undertaking that analysis.

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_______________________________ ____________________ 

Shana M. Broussard Date

Chair

_____________________________________ _________________________

Allen Dickerson Date

Vice Chair

April 8, 2021

April 9, 2021

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