Immigration might be a problem, but it's a good one to have, 2020 Democrat Beto O'Rourke said on Thursday. O'Rourke in his 2020 announcement video mentioned immigration as one of the issues of his campaign, saying that "all of us, wherever you live, can acknowledge that if immigration is a problem, it's the best possible problem for this country to have." The extremely positive take on the issue diverges somewhat from other Democratic candidates, who have said they would seek "smart border security" and "reject" a border wall, but haven't gone quite so far as to open themselves up to the risk that critics will claim they believe illegal immigration is a good thing. O'Rourke said the U.S. should "ensure that there are lawful paths to work, to be with family, and to flee persecution." In the lead-up to his campaign launch, O'Rourke has been somewhat vague about the specifics of his immigration plan; when asked in a Washington Post interview in January what should be done about visa overstays, for example, O'Rourke said, "I don't know," offering one possibility while saying that this is "something that we should be debating." He has, however, made clear that he does not support President Trump's border wall, and he has said he would take down existing barriers in El Paso. Brendan Morrow<doc-sep>Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) isn’t yet a candidate for the Democrat presidential election, but he is already making clear his stance on immigration — open borders and amnesty for all of the people in the country illegally. Media outlets, including the Houston Chronicle, are reporting O’Rourke has released a “10-point plan.” The Chronicle reported: After three terms in Congress and an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate, El Paso Democrat Beto O’Rourke has made clear his view that immigrants should be welcomed as “human beings” and that “walls end lives.” Now, signaling that he may soon announce a 2020 White House run, O’Rourke is putting a finer point on his immigration agenda, releasing a 10-point plan that calls for citizenship for both “Dreamers” and their parents, as well as for “millions more” who now live in the U.S. illegally. And not only is O’Rourke against building more walls along the U.S. border with Mexico but he has expressed support for tearing down existing barriers that divide El Paso from Mexico. “Yes, absolutely. I’d take the wall down,” O’Rourke said in an MSNBC interview. One politico scientist with the University of Houston quoted in the Chronicle report said this position puts O’Rourke on the left side of the ever-growing Democrat presidential field. “That is fairly to the left of where most of the people in the Democratic field are,” Brandon Rottinghaus said. The Chronicle noted that tearing down walls was not on the immigration policy list, “an omission that is likely to raise new questions about his border policy positions.” One strange point in O’Rourke’s immigration plan is the argument that a wall would make it harder for people here illegally to return home. “Here’s why,” O’Rourke wrote, “as we made it harder for people to cross into the United States, we made it less likely that once here they would attempt to go back to their home country. Fearing an increasingly militarized border, circular patterns of migration became linear.” His amnesty proposal is sweeping and includes all of the Dreamers, their parents — whom he calls “the original Dreamers” — and would bring “millions more out of the shadows and on a path to citizenship by ensuring that they register with the government to gain status to legally work, pay taxes and contribute even more to our country’s success.” Republicans may be cheering O’Rourke’s radical stance on immigration. “He is now showing, even more, how out of touch he is and how little he cares for American citizens and those who have followed the law to seek to become citizens,” Texas Republican Party Chairman James Dickey said. “Creating a whole new class of citizens whose status is a direct reward for breaking the law is just his latest dangerous extremist position.” “O’Rourke’s new policy paper does not call for abolishing ICE, but it does call for, an ‘end to the global war on drugs’ which he says has accelerated the erosion of civil society in Latin America and helped produce the resulting flow of immigrants and refugees,” the Chronicle reported. During his unsuccessful race to replace Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), O’Rourke’s Senate campaign website spelled out some of his immigration priorities: • End the militarization of our immigration enforcement system and close private immigration prisons and detention centers that profit from locking up families. • Pass the DREAM Act and ensure that undocumented immigrants who were brought here as children, known as ‘Dreamers’, find a permanent home and citizenship in the U.S. • Ensure that those who come to our borders seeking refuge from violence and persecution are given a fair opportunity to present their claims and guaranteed due process under our laws. • Improve the immigration system to encourage and facilitate family reunification, education, and the investment of talent in our country. • Modernize the visa system to allow U.S. employers to find workers for jobs that American workers can’t fill. • Reform our immigration laws to legalize the status of millions of immigrants already in our country and ensure a fair path to citizenship for those inspired by the opportunity and ideals that we present to the rest of the world. O’Rourke recently met with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) about a different kind of campaign in which he would toss his hat in the ring to unseat Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX). Nothing in O’Rourke’s plan that was reported in the media addressed curtailing drug and human trafficking at the border. Follow Penny Starr on Twitter<doc-sep>The Republican-controlled Congress did not pass any gun control legislation then, but Mr. O’Rourke continues to support similar policies, including universal background checks, magazine size limits and restrictions on some semiautomatic weapons. He also opposes concealed carry reciprocity, which would make concealed carry permits granted in any state valid nationwide, forcing states with strict licensing requirements to recognize permits from states with looser standards. It is one of the National Rifle Association’s legislative priorities. Health care While Mr. O’Rourke supports universal health care — increasingly a litmus-test position for Democratic candidates — he hasn’t committed to a specific way to get there. During his Senate campaign, he suggested that universal health care could take the form of a single-payer system or “a dual system,” in which a government-run program would coexist with private insurance. He has given conflicting messages on the most prominent proposal, “Medicare for all.” In 2017, during his time in the House, he said unequivocally, “A single-payer ‘Medicare for all’ program is the best way to ensure all Americans get the health care they need.” But during his Senate campaign, he carefully avoided those words, calling instead for “universal, guaranteed, high-quality health care for all.” He does support expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act and has urged Texas to do so. Other points in his 2018 platform included allowing the government to negotiate prescription drug prices with manufacturers and creating incentives for insurers to participate in the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges. Climate change When it comes to proposals for mitigating climate change, opponents frequently cite the potential costs of those plans. But Mr. O’Rourke has emphasized the financial impact of climate change itself. Billions of dollars that are spent on steps like sea walls, which would be critical if climate change continues unchecked, is money not spent on other priorities, he noted at a town-hall event with Columbia University students last month. At that event, Mr. O’Rourke spoke positively about the Green New Deal, calling it technically and logistically doable. As for its political prospects, “I don’t know,” he said. “That’s up to all of us, right?”<doc-sep>As President Donald Trump took the stage in El Paso, Texas, to advocate for his border wall, Beto O’Rourke, the Texas Democrat who came close to unseating Sen. Ted Cruz and is weighing a presidential bid, held his own event across the street to deliver the opposite message. The counterprogramming from the former El Paso Congress member had a clear message: The president is wrong on immigration. “We have so much to give, so much to show the rest of the country,” O’Rourke said in front of thousands in El Paso after joining a mile-long march down the border. “Here, a city that has been one of the safest in the United States of America for 20 years and counting. ... Walls do not save lives. Walls end lives.” O’Rourke, who gave up his House seat to run for the Senate last year, has spent the past couple of months pushing a social media campaign against Trump’s immigration agenda, highlighting how Mexicans and Americans peacefully share the border region to grow the economy and build a united culture. He’s interviewed immigrants and children of immigrants on his Instagram and Facebook page — the most viral of which was his dental hygienist — and opposes more physical barriers. And while O’Rourke’s 2020 ambitions remain unclear, his positioning on this issue has kept him in the national spotlight. And now with Trump in his hometown, he had the chance to spar with him on policy head-on — or rather, from across the street. Beto fact-checked Trump live With the backdrop of the US-Mexico border, Trump used El Paso to support his border wall policy — the reason he shut down the government for more than a month in December and January — and try to scare Americans about the dangers of violent criminals coming over the border. O’Rourke decided to serve as Trump’s fact-checker on the border. “The US cities of the Mexican-American border are much safer than the US cities in the interior of the United States of America,” he said. O’Rourke’s comments are based on some statistical facts about immigration: Just last week in his State of the Union speech, Trump specifically called out El Paso. “The border city of El Paso, Texas, used to have extremely high rates of violent crime — one of the highest in the country, and considered one of our nation’s most dangerous cities,” Trump told Congress. “Now, with a powerful barrier in place, El Paso is one of our safest cities.” O’Rourke and the mayor of El Paso, Dee Margo, dispute this account. The facts are on their side. El Paso has consistently had the second-lowest violent crime rate of similarly sized cities, a ranking it received both before and after a partial fence was built along the border in 2008. Despite what Trump said, it has never been one of the most dangerous cities in the United States. O’Rourke might run for president When O’Rourke challenged Cruz for his Senate seat — a race he lost by slightly more than 2 points, an astonishingly close margin for a Democrat in Texas — he was catapulted to a national platform. Now he’s a possible 2020 candidate, something he told Oprah Winfrey in a recent interview that he’s currently considering. He consistently ranks among the top five Democratic contenders in early 2020 polls. In many ways, O’Rourke came out of nowhere. He was a backbench Democrat who rarely engaged in the big fights in Congress. But he ran an unconventional 2018 Senate run, relying on grassroots energy and going to even the most conservative counties in Texas. He continuously out-fundraised Cruz, became a poster boy for the blue wave across the country, and drew media attention from national celebrities like Stephen Colbert and Ellen DeGeneres. He certainly got Trump’s attention. “Beto O’Rourke is a total lightweight compared to Ted Cruz, and he comes nowhere near representing the values and desires of the people of the Great State of Texas. He will never be allowed to turn Texas into Venezuela!” Trump tweeted in October. After O’Rourke lost, Trump continued to hit him, saying, “He lost and he wants to run for president. I thought you had to win to run for president.” And in standing in O’Rourke’s hometown of El Paso, Trump took another swing at the former Congress member, this time comparing crowd sizes. “A young man who’s got very little going for himself, except he’s got a great first name. … He challenged us,” Trump said at the Monday night rally, going on to falsely characterize the number of people in the audience. “So we have, let’s say, 35,000 people tonight. And he has 200 people, 300 people. Not too good.” Trump continued, “In fact, what I’d do, what I would say is that may be the end of his presidential bid.”<doc-sep>
EL PASO, Texas (Reuters) - Potential White House hopeful Beto O’Rourke accused Donald Trump of fear-mongering on Monday and the Republican president mocked the Democrat as a “young man who lost” in dueling rallies that could preview the tenor of the 2020 election campaign. O’Rourke, who narrowly lost his 2018 bid for a U.S. Senate seat, accused Trump of stoking “false fear” about immigrants and telling “lies” about his hometown El Paso, which Trump said was a dangerous place before it had a border fence. “We stand for America and we stand against a wall,” O’Rourke told a crowd of several thousand supporters, many waving “Beto 2020” signs and wearing “Immigrants Make America Great” baseball caps. “Walls do not save lives, they end lives.” Two hundred yards away in El Paso County Coliseum, Trump told his supporters that O’Rourke had “little going for himself, although he’s got a great first name.” “We are all challenged by a young man who lost an election to (Republican Senator) Ted Cruz,” said Trump. He said that O’Rourke’s rally was smaller than his, and that was a bad sign: “That may be the end of his presidential bid.” Reuters could not verify Trump’s claim that 35,000 people attended his rally, with about 10,000 inside. The city’s fire department allowed only the capacity 6,500 inside, the El Paso Times reported. Police estimated between 10,000 and 15,000 attended the O’Rourke march and rally, the newspaper said. Slideshow ( 20 images ) As the two men spoke, U.S. congressional negotiators said they had reached a tentative deal to try to avert another partial government shutdown. Aides said it did not contain the $5.7 billion Trump wanted for his wall that triggered the shutdown last month. Trump made clear on Monday he would not drop the demand for a border wall that delights his followers, first made in his campaign in the 2016 election. Giant banners at his rally read “Finish The Wall.” National polls show the wall is not popular with the majority of voters. A Reuters/IPSOS survey found 43 percent of the U.S. public supported additional border fencing. Trump said he had heard about a possible deal in Washington before he took the stage, but added: “Just so you know - we’re building the wall anyway. Maybe progress has been made - maybe not.” “BUILD THE WALL” It was Trump’s first direct clash with a potential 2020 rival, albeit on separate stages. Slideshow ( 20 images ) O’Rourke relished the prime-time national platform, sometimes breaking into Spanish, in what sounded like a campaign speech. He decried the Trump administration’s separation of immigrant children from their parents at the border. He said Dreamers - undocumented people brought to the United States by their parents when they were children - should be given citizenship, and their parents a pathway to citizenship. “With a president who describes Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals, we have a chance to tell him and the country that immigrants commit crime at a lower rate than Americans who are born in this country,” he said to shouts of “Beto, Beto.” Trump was pressing his case on immigration in the Democratic bastion of El Paso county, where the population is over 80 percent Hispanic. “I will never sign a bill that forces the mass release of violent criminals into our country,” he said, referring to a Democratic proposal in the Washington talks to lower the cap on detentions of criminal aliens by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Under Monday’s tentative agreement, the cap would likely stay around the same as in previous years, a congressional aide said. Although O’Rourke’s full-throated denunciation of the president sounded like he planned to run against Trump, the two-time congressman declined to discuss a potential bid when asked by reporters on a conference call on Monday. O’Rourke told Oprah Winfrey last week he would make a final decision about running for president by the end of the month.