Former U.S. Representative Beto O'Rourke hasn't officially declared himself as a candidate for President of the United States in the 2020 election cycle, but he's certainly keeping his name and ambition out there.
Not more than a day after the Texan announced a tour of the United States — undoubtedly to test the waters of a 2020 presidency — O'Rourke used the backdrop of the U.S.-Mexico border and aftermath of President Donald Trump's speech on a tougher immigration stance — to say things are all good along the border.
O'Rourke on Tuesday tweeted an aerial night video of what appears to be bright lights butted against darkness along the border. He calls the area one of the most "peaceful communities" on Earth. O'Rourke speaks softly while saying things along the border "have never been better."
A shot of the U.S.-Mexico border pic.twitter.com/R35klcZ0Ov
— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) January 9, 2019
About an hour after Trump's highly-publicized, and televised, plea to America for a tougher stance on immigration and more than $5 billion for a border wall, O'Rourke went to social media to give his stance.
O'Rourke answers a Twitter question in a soft, whispery voice with this statement:
"We've been trying to tell some of our stories from living on the U.S.-Mexico border, in addition to the facts, the border being one of the safest places in the United States of America. Northbound apprehensions being at record-low levels, and those who are being apprehended turning themselves in, and not fleeing from border patrol agents."
Trump said on national TV Tuesday night there was an emergency at the border, and that a steel wall was needed to curb illegal border crossings. Trump used monikers like human trafficking, drug smuggling, illegal aliens killing Americans and other facts and figures to stir what Democrat leaders called a "manufactured crisis."
O'Rourke, in his answer, said many of the people crossing the border are asylum seekers and children, and said the border is "as safe as it's ever been."
"With the president using fear, and anecdote, to try to instill an anxiety and paranoia to build the political will to construct this wall that would cost $30 billion and take private property and cause death and suffering as more asylum seekers are pushed to evermore hostile stretches of the U.S.-Mexico border — that was what we heard from the Oval Office."
O'Rourke went on to say "we need to meet that with the best traditions of this country, a country of immigrants."
He said El Paso is a place he likes to call home, and says it personifies America and should be "front and center in this discussion."
Uncommon Knowledge
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