Statement by Julián Castro: On the U.S. / Mexico Border

Last night in Texas, President Donald Trump once again created a circus of fear and paranoia around our border, telling lies to suit his political purposes.

It made me think about the path my own family took to arrive in the U.S., through a border crossing at Eagle Pass, Texas. That's where my grandmother, Victoria Castro, entered the U.S. as a seven-year-old orphan from Mexico. She then came to live with her nearest relatives on the west side of San Antonio. In San Antonio, she raised my mother as a single parent, and my mother raised my brother and me as a single parent. Eagle Pass is where our family started in America, so I visited a border crossing there to record a short video.

Watch the video I recorded from the Eagle Pass border crossing.

Eagle Pass, along with El Paso, McAllen and many other communities along the border, is one of the safest cities for its size in the United States today. The facts tell us that apprehensions at the southern border are at some of their lowest levels since the early 1970s, and that it was like this long before any walls were built.

Walls do not create real security. Walls create separation and division.

Just two generations after my grandmother came across this border, one of her grandsons, my brother Joaquin, is a member of Congress, and I'm running for President of the United States. Our nation has always been a country of immigrants, folks who have made a profound and positive difference to our nation's progress. That's true today, and if we get this right, it will be true tomorrow. We can have a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants, and a greater America because of that.

Don't believe Trump's lies — we don't have to choose between border security and being compassionate. We can have both. Join me in restoring the promise of America.

Thank you,
Julián