Former Attorney General Eric Holder spoke out defending the Obama administration from critics on the far-left about its deportation efforts while warning 2020 presidential candidates that the U.S. needs borders.

“The emphasis there was on people who had criminal records, people who posed a danger, a public safety risk,” Holder, who served under former President Obama, said of the Obama administration’s policy in a CNN interview released Saturday.

“Democrats have to understand that…borders mean something,” he added.

In the interview, Holder expressed disagreement with some 2020 Democrat candidate proposals to make illegally entering the U.S. a civil rather than a criminal offense.

“No, I don’t think that’s right,” he said. “The law that is on the books has been there for about 100 years or so.”

While many candidates pressed for more open borders, former Vice President Joe Biden also defended the Obama administration during Thursday night’s debate in Houston.

“What Latinos should look at, comparing this president to the president we have is outrageous, number one. We didn’t lock people up in cages,” Biden said, then went on to falsely claim that “we didn’t separate families.”

Biden also mentioned that Obama “did the best thing that was able to be done at the time” while touting the administration’s efforts under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.