57 Quotes by Beto O'Rourke

The freedoms that we have were purchased not just by those in uniform—and they definitely were—but also by those who took their lives into their hands, riding those Greyhound buses—the Freedom Riders, in the deep south, in the 1960s, who knew full well that they would be arrested, and they were, serving time, in the Mississippi State Penitentiary. Rosa Parks, getting from the back of the bus to the front of the bus. Peaceful, nonviolent protest.

Juarez had become a failed city. The mayor of Juarez lived in El Paso. Not only did he not live in his own city, he didn't live in his own country. You had all these kids out of school who didn't want to work because they saw their mothers toiling in jobs for hardly any cash.

El Paso in many ways is the Ellis Island for Mexico and much of Latin America.

I'm for the DREAM Act. It makes so much sense. Following the implementation of the DREAM Act, we'll have a case study we can point to where we can say that we provided a path to citizenship or legal involvement in the community for these young immigrants, and the sky didn't fall.

In terms of immigration, we're seeing a lot of Democrats and Republicans use the really elastic term, 'Comprehensive Immigration Reform,' and they don't totally understand what that means. For us in El Paso, it's part of a larger discussion about the nature of the border.

I have to convince other Democrats and Republicans that it's wise to invest in the U.S.-Mexico border, not just for security, but also for mobility and trade, and that's why we should open up the border.

Part of the job for me and others from El Paso who live along the border is to dispel the myths about how supposedly dangerous the border is.

We in El Paso and Juarez are literally one community. There's no separation; there's no DMZ; there's no buffer.

Giving low-level offenders a second chance, no matter the color of their skin or the economic status they hold, can create opportunity for all of us.