Bernie Sanders Says U.S. Should Build Migrant Facilities 'Right On The Border'

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Monday that his views on immigration policies include “building proper facilities right on the border” to house migrants waiting for their hearings.

When asked by moderators Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum at his Fox News presidential town hall on where asylum-seeking migrants would go if not the current facilities they’re detained in, Sanders said the United States should build “proper facilities” in states along the U.S.-Mexico border to house them.

The 2020 presidential candidate also said the country should hire “hundreds of new judges” to expedite the processing of the backlog of immigration cases. As it stands, there are about 400 immigration judges to handle the cases. There are more than 800,000 pending immigration cases across the U.S., according to a recent report from Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

Earlier this month in Iowa, Sanders spoke about the dangers of opening up the U.S.-Mexico border, saying that “there’s a lot of poverty in this world, and you’re going to have people from all over the world.”

The presidential candidate told Fox News on Monday that nobody is arguing against border security but that the U.S. needs “comprehensive immigration reform.”

Last year, Sanders called for abolishing the country’s current immigration system and restructuring Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He stressed Monday that migrants should not be demonized for seeking asylum when talking about immigration reform, and he has repeatedly denounced Trump’s proposed wall along the border.