Sen. Bernie Sanders used a Fox News town hall event to urge federal agencies to detain Central American migrants pending their fast-track asylum hearings.

The plan would end the catch-and-release practices which are indirectly funding the Central American migration.

“We have a problem at the border, a serious problem … We need the proper legal processes at the border so that these issues can be adjudicated to determine whether or not people or should be entitled to asylum,” Sanders said April 15.

When asked where the migrants could be kept prior to their asylum hearings, Sanders responded by saying, “What about building proper facilities for them right now? That can be done right on the border.”

In March almost 100,000 migrants were released to live in the United States prior to their asylum hearings, many of which are being scheduled for 2024 or 2025. This release process allows the migrants to find jobs, repay their smuggling fees, and then decide whether to send their earnings home or to smuggle their wives and children into the United States.

The government needs more immigration judges to quickly process asylum claims by migrants, Sanders said. “You’re coming into the country? Are you really fleeing violence or is it another reason?’ You need to have many, many more judges to expedite the process,” Sanders stated.

However, Sanders pitched himself to mainstream voters who oppose the migration and to left-wing progressives who support the migration.

While arguing against the massive inflow of economic migrants, he also described the migrants as fleeing violence — even though the migrants are leaving the comparative safety of Mexico to find better jobs in the United States. “We are now seeing desperate people fleeing violence and misery … with little children walking a thousand miles,” he said.

Sanders also coupled his call for detention of migrants with a call for amnesty of the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) population, which could reach 3 million.

He also dodged debate about the difficult details of an amnesty by calling for “Comprehensive immigration reform,” saying, “What we need is comprehensive immigration reform … [and] we need to provide legal status to those [DACA] people.”

“Comprehensive immigration reform” is meaningless jargon. For example, the unpopular and failed 2013 “Gang of Eight” amnesty added so many foreign workers to the economy that it would have shifted more of the nation’s wealth from wages to Wall Street, according to a 2013 report by the Congressional Budget Office. The bill would also have allowed companies to hire an unlimited number of foreign graduates who got college degrees in the United States, so slashing lifetime salaries for the many young graduates who back Sanders.

“I’m not saying this is an easy issue, let’s not politicize it,” Sanders said. “We need border security, of course we do. Who argues with that? That goes without saying.”

Many poor Central Americans are migrating into the United States because of the catch-and-release loopholes created and maintained by progressive Democrats and establishment Republicans.

Roughly 100,000 migrants crossed in March, and one million are expected in the 12 months leading up to November. Democrats say the migrants must be aided because they are fleeing crime, but many migrants say they prefer living in the United States.

Kens5.com TV reported from El Paso:

Sara Polato traveled with her 6-year-old son, Anthony El Salvador. She said she didn’t know it would be easy to cross the border. It was so easy for her that she didn’t realize she had already made it to the U.S. Minutes later, [Border Patrol agent Jose] Romero spotted three more people who had just crossed over. Among them, 29-year-old Jessica Maldonado of Honduras who is five months pregnant. Maldonado said it took her four months to make it to the border. She said it is her biggest wish to give birth in the U.S.

Many Democrat politicians in major cities welcome the migrants who will flood labor markets and communities, so nudging down wages and raising real-estate costs for blue-collar Americans.

Sanders has repeatedly argued against the pro-migration, cheap-labor policies pushed by other Democrats and by business leaders.

“If you open the borders, my God, there’s a lot of poverty in this world, and you’re going to have people from all over the world,” Sanders said at an April 7 event in Oskaloosa, Iowa. “I don’t think that’s something that we can do at this point.”

In 2015, Sanders argued that open borders would impoverish Americans. “Open borders? Now that’s a Koch brothers proposal,” he told Vox.com. “That’s a right-wing proposal which says essentially there is no United States … it would make everyone in America poorer and you’re doing away with the concept of the nation-state and I don’t think there’s any country in the world which believes in that.”

He continued, saying, “What right-wing people in this country would love is an open-borders policy. Bring in all kinds of people, work for $2 or $3 an hour … I think we have to raise wages in this country.”

Each year, roughly four million young Americans join the workforce after graduating from high school or university.

But the federal government then imports about 1.1 million legal immigrants, refreshes a resident population of roughly 1.5 million white-collar guest workers, in addition to approximately 500,000 blue-collar visa workers, and also tolerates about eight million illegal workers and the inflow of hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants.

This federal policy of flooding the market with cheap white-collar graduates and blue-collar foreign labor is intended to boost economic growth for investors.

This policy works by shifting enormous wealth from young employees towards older investors, even as it also widens wealth gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts children’s schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high-tech careers, and sidelines millions of marginalized Americans, including many who are now struggling with fentanyl addictions.