Sen. Bernie Sanders acknowledged the ongoing influx of illegal immigrants crossing the United States border with Mexico as “a serious problem,” but slammed President Trump for what he says are racist solutions.
“What we need is a border policy that is humane,” Sanders said Sunday on CNN. “Among other things, [we should] expedite the asylum process that brings in a lot more legal staff and judges so that people do not have to wait.”
A 2020 candidate in the Democratic primary, Sanders tweeted this week that Trump’s tariffs on Mexico were designed to curb a “fake border crisis.”
Immigration authorities arrested more than 140,000 migrants at the southern border in May, the most in any single month in more than a decade.
“Trump has been demonizing undocumented people in this country,” Sanders said. “Before he was president he was leader of the birther movement. He is anti-Muslim. That’s what his political strategy is.”
Trump threatened earlier this month to impose steep tariffs on Mexican imports if the country did not commit to “meaningful” immigration reform.
He announced late Friday night that the Mexican government had communicated an acceptable plan to his administration, for which reason the tariffs would not go into effect.
Sanders said America has bigger problems than dealing with immigration.
“This is not the kind of crisis that requires demonetization of desperate people,” he said. “The issue of climate change, the issue of tens of millions of Americans not having any health insurance, half of our people are living paycheck to paycheck … those are more important crises.”
