The seven candidates vying for the Democratic nomination of Hawaii’s Congressional District 1 race tackled foreign policy and immigration reform issues Saturday at their first joint appearance.

Asked how to approach the tense border situation between South Korea and North Korea, state Sen. Will Espero said the United States should extend more of an olive branch to North Korea.

"We need to have cultural exchanges, we need to have sports competitions, we need to show the North Koreans … what aloha is all about,"Espero said. "When you have an enemy out there, is it best to look at them and growl or look at diplomacy … look at how we can help them?"

But Councilman Stanley Chang said North Korea has violated the armistice ending the Korean War dozens of times as well as nuclear arms agreements with the U.S. twice.

"If we’re talking engagement, if we’re talking about aid, we need to be extremely clear that any type of talks must lead to complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of the nuclear program"as well as an end to missile launches into the airspace of its neighbors and cessation of its human rights violations.

Councilman Ikaika Anderson said he is OKwith humanitarian aid to North Korea and other countries with questionable government leadership but "we need to ensure that any further and future aid comes with required concessions from the regime," adding, "We need to ensure that we are not continuously providing aid that is going to the wrong folks, that is not reaching their hungry citizens, their people who are in poverty."

Kathryn Xian, executive director of the Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery and a community activist, said she believes North Korea will "collapse on its own." Such a situation could lead to a massive influx of refugees into South Korea, severely taxing its infrastructure and economy.

The U.S. and other nations need to prepare for this to ensure continued peace and stability if and when this happens, she said.

Councilman Joey Manahan called the 2012 Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement "the most important commercially significant treaty that we have entered … in maybe the past two decades." Hawaii could play a key role in the region for U.S. relations not just by hosting military training exercises like RIMPAC 2014 but also meetings and summits, including peace talks, he said.

State Senate President Donna Mercado Kim said she supports the 1953 Mutual Defense Treaty that created an alliance between the U.S. and South Korea, including the placement of 30,000 troops to defend against an attack from the North. Kim said, however, that she also supports "peace negotiations and dialogue with North Korea to ensure lasting peace in the Pacific."

State Rep. Mark Takai said the U.S. role in South Korea has deterred aggression from North Korea. Development of nuclear weapons by North Korea would be a destabilizing development in the region, he added.

The U.S. should work with its international partners, including South Korea and China, to prevent that, he said. China should also be encouraged to be more transparent about its own military program, he said.

There were some differences in how the candidates approach immigration reform.

Xian said tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors are being held in detention centers across the U.S. and "treated like criminals." The U.S. needs to "ensure we do not do more harm and victimize these aspiring Americans."

Manahan, a Filipino immigrant, said he supports the DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act that gives conditional permanent residency to immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as minors, have been here for at least five years and meet certain conditions.

Takai said he supports the DREAM Act and immigration laws that prioritize family unification.

"We should support reforms to improve and streamline an immigration system that demonstrates compassion for the undocumented but does not give them an unfair advantage over those who are overseas."

Some of the best and brightest in the U.S. are immigrants, Anderson said.

"Why turn these folks away from our shores?"

Kim said she supports streamlining the legal immigration system and creating a clearer path for undocumented aliens to earn citizenship, but "we need to do criminal background checks and help them pay back taxes and allow them some way to become citizens."She also called for cracking down on employers who hire undocumented workers and beefing up border security, and to "remove criminals and prosecute those that threaten our national security."

Chang said if he wished for one bill to pass, it would be the comprehensive immigration reform bill now being considered by Congress. He described it as a tremendous economic opportunity to attract "the best and the brightest here."

Espero said the U.S. could also look deeper into the countries from where undocumented individuals are arriving "to see how we can help those countries so that maybe those residents won’t try to sneak in, and stay where they are."

The forum at Honolulu Community College was sponsored by the Hawaii Korean Chamber of Commerce, the Filipino Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii, the Asian American Junior Chamber of Commerce and the Korean American Bar Association of Hawaii.

Invited but not in attendance were former U.S. Rep. Charles Djou and Allan Levene, the two Republicans in the Congressional District 1 race, and nonpartisans Calvin Griffin and Robert Meyer. Barbara Marumoto, Djou’s representative, said he had military duty.

There are two other major congressional district candidate forums currently scheduled before the Aug. 9 primary election day. The Building Industry of Association is holding one Tuesday night, while "Insights" on PBSHawaii is hosting the only live telecast forum on July 10.