EL PASO, Texas (KVIA)– Hundreds of El Pasoans gathered on Saturday today in support of state Rep. James Talarico and his \u201cTake Back Texas\u201d rally, where he spoke about immigration reform, unity and lowering costs for working families.<\/p>\n
Talarico focused much of his speech on issues he said are especially important to the Borderland, including comprehensive immigration reform and what he described as the need to \u201clove your neighbor\u201d through public policy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are so divided as a country that we can’t even share the Super Bowl anymore,\u201d Talarico told the crowd.<\/p>\n
He reflected on his upbringing, saying many of his childhood memories were made in El Paso. During his time as a teacher in San Antonio, Talarico said he taught many undocumented students.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were my most patriotic students,\u201d he said. \u201cThey understood something about this country that a lot of us who are native born have forgotten, that this is supposed to be the land of opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Talarico criticized U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, commonly known as ICE, for its treatment of students and their families.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to hold ICE accountable,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s why we need to take the funding that\u2019s been given to ICE and put it back into our communities where it belongs. And it\u2019s why we need to finally pass comprehensive immigration reform, because this is a deeply broken system.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said Texans and particularly El Pasoans understand immigration better than most Americans.<\/p>\n
\u201cFolks in El Paso understand immigration better than most people around the country, because we live with it every day, both the benefits and the challenges,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Talarico also outlined policy priorities he said would help families across Texas, including lowering the cost of housing, child care and prescription drugs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am trying to love my neighbor through public policy by lowering the cost of housing, lowering the cost of child care, lowering the cost of prescription drugs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He closed his remarks with a message of unity, quoting Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the words of Bad Bunny, the only thing more powerful than hate is love,\u201d Talarico said. \u201cThank you for being here. God bless you. Let\u2019s go win this thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Talarico said he hopes the people of El Paso will support him on Election Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL PASO, Texas (KVIA)– Hundreds of El Pasoans gathered on Saturday today in support of state Rep. James…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-175190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}