Univision Democratic debate in Miami: news and updates

Wednesday night’s Democratic debate on Univision crystallized something important: The discussion on immigration within the Democratic Party is further to the left than it has ever been.

But you wouldn’t have picked that up simply from watching the messy, confusing Univision debate itself. And even if you did pick it up, it wouldn’t tell you anything about whether Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders is the better candidate for Democratic voters who care about immigration.

The Democratic debate on Wednesday, hosted by the Spanish-speaking network Univision, offered a unique time to ask candidates about US policies and how they affect the country’s Hispanic population. The debate largely lived up to that, fielding questions about immigration, Cuba, and Puerto Rico.

But there was one big issue missing from the debate, as it has been from the rest of the 2016 campaign: the US-led war on drugs. Specifically, no one asked Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders one of the biggest questions facing Latin America today: How have US drug policies contributed to violence in the region, and what steps would you take to change that?

It was only three days since the last Democratic debate, but Wednesday night’s showdown in Miami might as well have been a whole new race.

Since debating in Flint on Sunday night, Bernie Sanders had scored an upset victory in Michigan — a surprise win that’s put Hillary Clinton on the defensive while emboldening Sanders.

In 2008, during an interview with Univision’s Jorge Ramos, Barack Obama promised to introduce a comprehensive immigration reform bill during his first year as president.

He did not do that. And his failure to keep that promise set off years of very testy relations between the Obama administration and immigration activists.

In the first hour of Univision’s Democratic debate, Americans got to see why it’s so important for a Hispanic-focused, Spanish-speaking network to host a debate: We got more questions about the candidates’ stances on immigration policy — a so far largely neglected issue — at this debate than any other.

But perhaps no moment showed this more than when an actual victim of deportation policies spoke out, asking the candidates whether they would take steps to reunite her — a Guatemalan immigrant — and her children with her children’s father.

Jorge Ramos dropped the B-word at the Univision debate Wednesday night: Benghazi. The audience responded with its own B-word: booo.

The audience booed for eight straight seconds.

The most dreaded internet meme is back, but this time it’s not about a black-and-blue dress (to all white-and-gold truthers, science proved you wrong).

It’s about the suit Bernie Sanders wore to a Univision Democratic debate on Wednesday night.