We already knew that John Fetterman, the 6-foot-8 Rust Belt mayor who barreled into the PA Senate race two months ago, had a big heart for immigration. Right after he launched the campaign, he told AL DÍA the story of his wife, Gisele Fetterman, and how she immigrated to the U.S. at age nine.

"She was fleeing a dangerous and unstable situation in Brazil, and she lived many years as an undocumented person," the PA Senate candidate said back in September. "She cleaned houses. She worked her ass off for 10 to 12 hours a day. She paid her taxes and never got any government assistance.We have half of the political process essentially saying these terrible things about immigrants. But we have the real immigrant story in our family. It is, I think, the more accurate reality of immigration today."

That was shortly after the undocumented immigration emerged as the punching bag of the U.S. presidential race. Today, in the wake of the deadly Paris attacks, the mood has become even less hospitable towards migrants. But Fetterman has taken a defensive stance on the issue closer to that of Pennsylvania brethren Governor Tom Wolf and Philadelphia's Mayor-elect Jim Kenney.

Tuesday the candidate released a sharp video package simply titled "Immigration." In it he tells the story of his wife, and how he's "grateful" she entered the U.S. as an undocumented person many decades back. But first, the video starts with a textual jab at incumbent Senator Pat Toomey (R).

Fetterman goes on to advocate for better pathways to citizenship, reaffirming immigration reform a top priority in his campaign. He has yet to release any policy papers on the issue, but it is still a long ways off from the election in November 2016. Fetterman will face two other Democratic candidates: former Rep. Joe Sestak and Katie McGinty, a former top aide to Gov. Wolf and former Gov. Ed Rendell.

"We as a society take a step backwards if we do anything but embrace the people that are here and create effective laws and paths to citizenship for people entering our country," he says in the video.