Former Vice President and 2020 Democrat presidential primary candidate Joe Biden (D-DE) previously vowed to ban sanctuary cities across the United States that shield illegal aliens from deportation.

During a September 2007 Democrat presidential primary debate in New Hampshire at Dartmouth College, Biden said he would not support allowing local jurisdictions and states to ignore federal immigration law to help protect illegal aliens from deportation through sanctuary city policies.

The former Delaware senator even went as far as to criticize President George W. Bush’s administration for allowing sanctuary cities to operate in the U.S.

Biden’s exchange with New England Cable News’s Alison King went as follows:

KING: I’d like to hear from Senator Biden, would you allow these cities to ignore the federal law? [Emphasis added] BIDEN: The reason that cities ignore the federal law is the fact that there is no funding at the federal level to provide for the kind of enforcement at the federal level you need … Part of the problem is you have to have a federal government that can enforce laws. This administration’s been fundamentally derelict in not funding any of the requirements that are needed even to enforce the existing law… [Emphasis added] … KING: So Senator Biden, yes or no, would you allow those cities to ignore the federal law? [Emphasis added] BIDEN: No. [Emphasis added]

Biden has previously held a number of the same positions on national immigration policy as President Trump, whom he now attacks as “racist.”

For example, Biden voiced his support for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to stop illegal immigration in 2006 and endorsed mandatory E-Verify to ban employers from hiring illegal aliens over American citizens, Breitbart News noted.

“Folks, I voted for a fence, I voted, unlike most Democrats — and some of you won’t like it — I voted for 700 miles of fence,” Biden said. “But, let me tell you, we can build a fence 40 stories high — unless you change the dynamic in Mexico and — and you will not like this, and punish American employers who knowingly violate the law when, in fact, they hire illegals. Unless you do those two things, all the rest is window dressing.”

Currently, Biden is leading the 2020 Democrat presidential primary against Trump by running on a strict open borders platform that not only demands amnesty for all 11 to 22 million illegal aliens living in the U.S., but promotes additional public benefits for border crossers at American taxpayers’ expense.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.