In 2016, one campaign pillar that pushed Donald Trump to victory (among many other equally misguided agendas) was his anti-immigrant xenophobia. Unlike many other campaign promises, President Trump has actually made good on his promise to restrict the free-flow of people into the United States: Trump has banned immigration from certain African and Muslim-majority nations, used public funds to begin construction of his border wall, and emboldened ICE agents to systematically arrest and deport undocumented immigrants from anywhere in the United States.

The next administration must reverse Trump’s backward and illiberal immigration policy as soon as possible. However, one of the top contenders for the White House in 2020, Senator Bernie Sanders, has expressed questionable views on immigration in the past. For being hailed as the apex of American progressivism, Sanders has little to show for it by way of immigration policy.

Before I continue, I want to assert that it would be positively foolish to claim that Bernie Sanders would be worse on immigration policy than Donald Trump—that is not my argument. Any Democratic candidate’s immigration agenda would be miles ahead of Trump’s politics in terms of promoting immigrant safety and freedom. According to Bernie’s website, he favors policies that any pro-immigrant liberal would be content to see—reinstatement of DACA, halting deportations, and ending Trump’s racist travel ban. In terms of immigration, the problem with Bernie Sanders lies in his questionable historical record on the topic, and that his “progressive” policies may hurt immigrants more than they help.

Historically, Bernie Sanders has seemed to support immigration only when it aligned with his overly ideological progressive interests. In an interview with Lou Dobbs in 2007, Sanders expressed his opposition to the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, claiming that it would depress American wages and criticizing its guest worker program. With this in mind, those who are pro-immigrant must ask themselves: is killing a bill that would provide a path to citizenship for over 12 million undocumented immigrants justified because of a guest worker program that allows only 200,000 annual participants? I leave it to you to decide.

Unfortunately, this is not the first case in which Bernie would utilize bad economics to justify his restrictionist immigration positions. In a recent (and barely coherent) interview with the New York Times’ Binyamin Appelbaum, Sanders flat-out denies the evidence that immigration does not hurt wages for American workers.

Sanders would rather have Americans believe that immigration makes us all worse off so that Americans would be more open to his progressive agenda. He has called open borders a “Koch Brothers proposal” to line the pockets of billionaires with cheap immigrant labor, simultaneously hurting the American worker. This assertion is not only factually incorrect (open borders could make the world richer by trillions of dollars) but also illuminates a darker, zealous ideological proposition by the progressive movement. Are progressives really willing to limit migration—human freedom and economic opportunity be damned—just to stick it to a few billionaires?

These sentiments are reflected in Sanders’ current presidential platform. Sanders claims that he will “require a $15 minimum wage and overtime pay” for all immigrant workers. While this seems like a great idea in theory (and certainly nothing any honest liberal would oppose in principle), requiring a $15 minimum wage for immigrants would leave many immigrants (and native workers) without a job. The sword is double-sided: immigrant-owned small businesses, which account for 30% of all small business growth, would also be hurt by a $15 minimum wage proposal. If free immigration is contingent on all immigrants being guaranteed a $15 minimum wage, Sanders and his progressives will have to accept much lower levels of immigration.

On the topic of immigration levels, Sanders’ plan does a good job of providing a path to citizenship and freedom from deportation for undocumented immigrants already in the United States. Yet, it says nothing of increasing quotas for legal immigration, save for a meager increase of 50,000 vaguely defined “climate migrants.”

Again, Sanders’ immigration plan would certainly be an improvement over that of President Trump. But that represents an extremely low bar, and Sanders’ prevailing view of immigrants as labor pawns of billionaires, rather than humans seeking a better life for themselves and their children, is problematic at best. Liberals must look beyond the rhetoric and determine who really will do the most to further immigrant interests after a turbulent and regressive Trumpian period. I won’t elaborate on who I think is the best answer, but perhaps a candidate who actually voted in favor of immigrant amnesty bills would be a good place to start.