Presidential candidate Julian Castro joined other Democratic White House contenders to say he wouldn’t stop residents of border communities from tearing down some barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“We have 654 miles of fencing already out of 994 miles of the border. Would it surprise me if there are places where it would make sense to take some of that down? No,” Castro told reporters Thursday after a town hall in Iowa.
But Castro deferred the decision ultimately “to those communities where there’s fencing.”
Julian Castro, to @PatrickSvitek, on taking down existing border wall: “Would it surprise me if there are places where it would make sense to take some of that down? No.” He adds that he would have voted against this latest budget agreement. pic.twitter.com/mZbsr93WIH
— Vaughn Hillyard (@VaughnHillyard) February 22, 2019
The former Obama administration housing chief and ex-mayor of San Antonio, Texas, made the comments during his first trip to Iowa since announcing his bid for the presidency in January. His remarks preceded the introduction Friday of a joint resolution in Congress by his younger twin brother, Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, that could block Trump’s border emergency, preventing the president from redirecting Department of Defense resources toward border impediments.
Julian Castro was asked about his position on Trump’s 2016 campaign promise after former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, a fellow Texan, told MSNBC this month he would demolish the border structure near his hometown of El Paso.
“Yes, absolutely. I’d take the wall down,” O’Rourke said, adding that a hypothetical referendum held in El Paso over razing the barriers would pass.
O’Rourke has remained mum about his presidential aspirations after his narrow defeat against Republican Sen. Ted Cruz last year for Texas’ Senate seat, but that hasn’t prevented several high profile Democrats and grassroots organizations from trying to draft him into the 2020 race.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York is another declared presidential candidate who said she too would take down parts of the wall with the consent of border residents.
“Well, I’d have to ask folks in that part of the country to see whether the fencing that exists today is helpful or unhelpful,” she said last weekend during a multiday swing through New Hampshire. “But Democrats are not afraid of national security or border security. Democrats have funded border security for decades. So it’s not a question of not wanting to keep the country safe, but what President Trump wants to do is build a medieval-style wall.”
Other 2020 Democrats have slammed Trump’s border proposal. Sen. Kamala Harris of California, for example, has repeatedly described the president’s plan as “a vanity project,” and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has called it a “monument to hate.”
Trump last week declared a national emergency after Congress failed to meet his demand for $5.7 billion for impediments, despite a historic 35-day partial government shutdown over the issue. Instead, a bipartisan group of lawmaker-negotiators agreed to $1.375 billion worth of steel slat fence, triggering the president’s emergency declaration.
