Asked why he supported “open borders” at a recent Iowa town hall, Bernie Sanders responded that he did not.

“I’m afraid you may be getting your information wrong . . . I think what we need is comprehensive immigration reform,” said Sanders. It got worse. “My god, there’s a lot of poverty in this world, and you’re going to have people from all over the world. And I don’t think that’s something that we can do at this point. Can’t do it.”

Liberal critics to Bernie’s right cynically frame comments like this one as evidence of his lack of commitment to racial justice. This is absurd: Bernie has a far better record on, and program for, racial justice than members of the Democratic establishment. Bernie does, however, sometimes fail to connect the dots between his marquee economic agenda and his racial justice program. His decrying “open borders” was a case in point: the comment was politically unnecessary, played into a right-wing nativist trap, and misconstrued the political economy of migration.