Bernie Sanders visits border in Arizona, says the U.S. doesn't need a wall

Bernie Sanders at the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona.

(Image credit: Twitter.com/BernieSanders)

During a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border Saturday, Bernie Sanders said he believes the "so-called immigration problem" facing the United States is "trumped up and exaggerated."

Sanders held his press conference near Nogales, Arizona, and said the United States doesn't need a wall, but must "fix our broken criminal justice system. First and foremost, it goes without saying that we need comprehensive immigration reform, we need to take 11 million undocumented people out of the shadows, out of fear, and we need to provide them with legal protection, and we need to provide them with a path toward citizenship."

Sanders said President Obama is part of a "deportation regime" that he would put an end to, and decried private prisons and detention centers. He also brought up Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, saying people should be "rightly appalled by the divisive bigoted and xenophobic comments of people like Donald Trump," adding that Trump's "labeling of Mexicans as rapists and criminals repulses all Americans of good will" and "to insult an entire nation is not befitting of anybody, let alone a candidate for president of the United States."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.