Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke called for the removal of El Paso’s critical border wall this week; saying the physical barrier “has not in any way” made the US “safer” and costs “tens of billions of dollars.”
Beto O'Rourke when asked, since Rep. @DanCrenshawTX asked on Twitter, if he would tear down the walls that are already in place: Yes and I think a referendum to do so would pass. pic.twitter.com/ENZuYvdqEa
— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) February 15, 2019
“Would you -if you could- take the wall down now? Here?” asked MSNBC’s Chris Hayes.
“Yes, Absolutely. I’d take the wall down,” said Beto.
“Here’s what we know… After the Secure Fence Act we built 600 miles of wall and fencing on a 2,000 mile border. What that has done has not in any way made us safer. It cost us tens of billions of dollars to build and to maintain,” he added.
BETO’S ADMISSION: O’Rourke Says ‘I don’t Know’ How to Fix Visa Overstays
Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke continued to raise eyebrows among his Democratic colleagues this week; telling the Washington Post he “doesn’t know” how to fix blatant visa violations.
“[A recent video] noted that most undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States in the past decade came not over the border but on visas that then expired,” writes the Post.
“So what should be done to address visa overstays?” asked the newspaper.
“I don’t know,” O’Rourke fired back.
So what should be done to address visa overstays?
“I don’t know,” O’Rourke said.@wpjenna interview with Beto in El Paso: https://t.co/2iqTd21rIO
— Caitlin Huey-Burns (@CHueyBurns) January 15, 2019
“That’s a problem when you’re like, ‘It will be a wall,’ or ‘It will be this,’ or ‘We can only do it with this,’” O’Rourke deflected. “The genius is we can nonviolently resolve our differences, though I won’t get to my version of perfect or I, working with you, will get to something better than what we have today . . . It’s rare that someone’s ever been able to impose their will unilaterally in this country. We don’t want that.”
Read the full report here.
TOTAL DENIAL: Beto O’Rourke Says Border ‘Safe as Ever,’ Wall Will Cause ‘Death and Suffering’
Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke doubled-down on his party’s insistence there’s no national security crisis taking place along the US-Mexico border; saying the region is “as safe as ever” and the President’s wall will bring “death and suffering.”
“By any measure, the border is as safe as it has ever been, and 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 and we need to meet that fear with the truth,” O’Rourke said.
A shot of the U.S.-Mexico border pic.twitter.com/R35klcZ0Ov
— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) January 9, 2019
O’Rourke’s comments came hours after President Trump addressed the nation; outlining his plans to beef-up border security after more than 60,000 migrants have been detained by federal authorities over the previous three months.