Texas Rep. Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke, whose district encompasses El Paso, Texas, called the U.S.-Mexico border “one of the safest places in the United States” in a video message on social media.
The likely 2020 presidential contender blasted President Trump’s plan to build a border wall. “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.